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under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

folds

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under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

hampshire

How many times the word 'hampshire' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

long

How many times the word 'long' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

whole

How many times the word 'whole' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

fenimore

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under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

autumn

How many times the word 'autumn' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

owl

How many times the word 'owl' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

powers

How many times the word 'powers' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

neigh

How many times the word 'neigh' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

looming

How many times the word 'looming' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

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under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

did

How many times the word 'did' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

waving

How many times the word 'waving' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

break

How many times the word 'break' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

filled

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under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

poverty

How many times the word 'poverty' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

stories

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under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

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under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

forest

How many times the word 'forest' appears in the text?

under an unwonted peace. Now they flew to their arms as to their birthright. The old soldiers of Crecy, of Nogent, and of Poictiers were glad to think that they might hear the war-trumpet once more, and gladder still were the hot youth who had chafed for years under the martial tales of their sires. To pierce the great mountains of the south, to fight the tamers of the fiery Moors, to follow the greatest captain of the age, to find sunny cornfields and vineyards, when the marches of Picardy and Normandy were as rare and bleak as the Jedburgh forests--here was a golden prospect for a race of warriors. From sea to sea there was stringing of bows in the cottage and clang of steel in the castle. Nor did it take long for every stronghold to pour forth its cavalry, and every hamlet its footmen. Through the late autumn and the early winter every road and country lane resounded with nakir and trumpet, with the neigh of the war-horse and the clatter of marching men. From the Wrekin in the Welsh marches to the Cotswolds in the west or Butser in the south, there was no hill-top from which the peasant might not have seen the bright shimmer of arms, the toss and flutter of plume and of pensil. From bye-path, from woodland clearing, or from winding moor-side track these little rivulets of steel united in the larger roads to form a broader stream, growing ever fuller and larger as it approached the nearest or most commodious seaport. And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited. From Orwell to the Dart there was no port which did not send forth its little fleet, gay with streamer and bunting, as for a joyous festival. Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters. In the ancient and populous county of Hampshire there was no lack of leaders or of soldiers for a service which promised either honor or profit. In the north the Saracen's head of the Brocas and the scarlet fish of the De Roches were waving over a strong body of archers from Holt, Woolmer, and Harewood forests. De Borhunte was up in the east, and Sir John de Montague in the west. Sir Luke de Ponynges, Sir Thomas West, Sir Maurice de Bruin, Sir Arthur Lipscombe, Sir Walter Ramsey, and stout Sir Oliver Buttesthorn were all marching south with levies from Andover, Arlesford, Odiham and Winchester, while from Sussex came Sir John Clinton, Sir Thomas Cheyne, and Sir John Fallislee, with a troop of picked men-at-arms, making for their port at Southampton. Greatest of all the musters, however, was that of Twynham Castle, for the name and the fame of Sir Nigel Loring drew towards him the keenest and boldest spirits, all eager to serve under so valiant a leader. Archers from the New Forest and the Forest of Bere, billmen from the pleasant country which is watered by the Stour, the Avon, and the Itchen, young cavaliers from the ancient Hampshire houses, all were pushing for Christchurch to take service under the banner of the five scarlet roses. And now, could Sir Nigel have shown the bachelles of land which the laws of rank required, he might well have cut his forked pennon into a square banner, and taken such a following into the field as would have supported the dignity of a banneret. But poverty was heavy upon him, his land was scant, his coffers empty, and the very castle which covered him the holding of another. Sore was his heart when he saw rare bowmen and war-hardened spearmen turned away from his gates, for the lack of the money which might equip and pay them. Yet the letter which Aylward had brought him gave him powers which he was not slow to use. In it Sir Claude Latour, the Gascon lieutenant of the White Company, assured him that there remained in his keeping enough to fit out a hundred archers and twenty men-at-arms, which, joined to the three hundred veteran companions already in France, would make a force which any leader might be proud to command. Carefully and sagaciously the veteran knight chose out his men from the swarm of volunteers. Many an anxious consultation he held with Black Simon, Sam Aylward, and other of his more experienced followers, as to who should come and who should stay. By All Saints' day, however ere the last leaves had fluttered to earth in the Wilverley and Holmesley glades, he had filled up his full numbers, and mustered under his banner as stout a following of Hampshire foresters as ever twanged their war-bows. Twenty men-at-arms, too, well mounted and equipped, formed the cavalry of the party, while young Peter Terlake of Fareham, and Walter Ford of Botley, the martial sons of martial sires, came at their own cost to wait upon Sir Nigel and to share with Alleyne Edricson the duties of his squireship. Yet, even after the enrolment, there was much to be done ere the party could proceed upon its way. For armor, swords, and lances, there was no need to take much forethought, for they were to be had both better and cheaper in Bordeaux than in England. With the long-bow, however, it was different. Yew staves indeed might be got in Spain, but it was well to take enough and to spare with them. Then three spare cords should be carried for each bow, with a great store of arrow-heads, besides the brigandines of chain mail, the wadded steel caps, and the brassarts or arm-guards, which were the proper equipment of the archer. Above all, the women for miles round were hard at work cutting the white surcoats which were the badge of the Company, and adorning them with the red lion of St. George upon the centre of the breast. When all was completed and the muster called in the castle yard the oldest soldier of the French wars was fain to confess that he had never looked upon a better equipped or more warlike body of men, from the old knight with his silk jupon, sitting his great black war-horse in the front of them, to Hordle John, the giant recruit, who leaned carelessly upon a huge black bow-stave in the rear. Of the six score, fully half had seen service before, while a fair sprinkling were men who had followed the wars all their lives, and had a hand in those battles which had made the whole world ring with the fame and the wonder of the island infantry. Six long weeks were taken in these preparations, and it was close on Martinmas ere all was ready for a start. Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels. Already he had learned to bless his father for that wise provision which had made him seek to know the world ere he had ventured to renounce it. For it was a different place from that which he had pictured--very different from that which he had heard described when the master of the novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne had native shrewdness and a mind which was young enough to form new conclusions and to outgrow old ones. He could not fail to see that the men with whom he was thrown in contact, rough-tongued, fierce and quarrelsome as they were, were yet of deeper nature and of more service in the world than the ox-eyed brethren who rose and ate and slept from year's end to year's end in their own narrow, stagnant circle of existence. Abbot Berghersh was a good man, but how was he better than this kindly knight, who lived as simple a life, held as lofty and inflexible an ideal of duty, and did with all his fearless heart whatever came to his hand to do? In turning from the service of the one to that of the other, Alleyne could not feel that he was lowering his aims in life. True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier. The man of God and the man of the sword might without scandal be united in the same individual. Why then should he, a mere clerk, have scruples when so fair a chance lay in his way of carrying out the spirit as well as the letter of his father's provision. Much struggle it cost him, anxious spirit-questionings and midnight prayings, with many a doubt and a misgiving; but the issue was that ere he had been three days in Castle Twynham he had taken service under Sir Nigel, and had accepted horse and harness, the same to be paid for out of his share of the profits of the expedition. Henceforth for seven hours a day he strove in the tilt-yard to qualify himself to be a worthy squire to so worthy a knight. Young, supple and active, with all the pent energies from years of pure and healthy living, it was not long before he could manage his horse and his weapon well enough to earn an approving nod from critical men-at-arms, or to hold his own against Terlake and Ford, his fellow-servitors. But were there no other considerations which swayed him from the cloisters towards the world? So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. Yet to Alleyne had been opened now a side of life of which he had been as innocent as a child, but one which was of such deep import that it could not fail to influence him in choosing his path. A woman, in monkish precepts, had been the embodiment and concentration of what was dangerous and evil--a focus whence spread all that was to be dreaded and avoided. So defiling was their presence that a true Cistercian might not raise his eyes to their face or touch their finger-tips under ban of church and fear of deadly sin. Yet here, day after day for an hour after nones, and for an hour before vespers, he found himself in close communion with three maidens, all young, all fair, and all therefore doubly dangerous from the monkish standpoint. Yet he found that in their presence he was conscious of a quick sympathy, a pleasant ease, a ready response to all that was most gentle and best in himself, which filled his soul with a vague and new-found joy. And yet the Lady Maude Loring was no easy pupil to handle. An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority. Did a subject interest her, was there space in it for either romance or imagination, she would fly through it with her subtle, active mind, leaving her two fellow-students and even her teacher toiling behind her. On the other hand, were there dull patience needed with steady toil and strain of memory, no single fact could by any driving be fixed in her mind. Alleyne might talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar. Then he had but to bring out the old romance book from the priory, with befingered cover of sheepskin and gold letters upon a purple ground, to entice her wayward mind back to the paths of learning. At times, too, when the wild fit was upon her, she would break into pertness and rebel openly against Alleyne's gentle firmness. Yet he would jog quietly on with his teachings, taking no heed to her mutiny, until suddenly she would be conquered by his patience, and break into self-revilings a hundred times stronger than her fault demanded. It chanced however that, on one of these mornings when the evil mood was upon her, Agatha the young tire-woman, thinking to please her mistress, began also to toss her head and make tart rejoinder to the teacher's questions. In an instant the Lady Maude had turned upon her two blazing eyes and a face which was blanched with anger. "You would dare!" said she. "You would dare!" The frightened tire-woman tried to excuse herself. "But my fair lady," she stammered, "what have I done? I have said no more than I heard." "You would dare!" repeated the lady in a choking voice. "You, a graceless baggage, a foolish lack-brain, with no thought above the hemming of shifts. And he so kindly and hendy and long-suffering! You would--ha, you may well flee the room!" She had spoken with a rising voice, and a clasping and opening of her long white fingers, so that it was no marvel that ere the speech was over the skirts of Agatha were whisking round the door and the click of her sobs to be heard dying swiftly away down the corridor. Alleyne stared open-eyed at this tigress who had sprung so suddenly to his rescue. "There is no need for such anger," he said mildly. "The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred." "I know it," she cried, "I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one." "Nay, nay, no one has misused me," he answered. "But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what." "And you are he who taught me to speak the truth," she cried. "Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her." Such was a sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth. And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness. He had ridden over to Poole, one November day, with his fellow-squire, Peter Terlake, in quest of certain yew-staves from Wat Swathling, the Dorsetshire armorer. The day for their departure had almost come, and the two youths spurred it over the lonely downs at the top of their speed on their homeward course, for evening had fallen and there was much to be done. Peter was a hard, wiry, brown faced, country-bred lad who looked on the coming war as the schoolboy looks on his holidays. This day, however, he had been sombre and mute, with scarce a word a mile to bestow upon his comrade. "Tell me Alleyne Edricson," he broke out, suddenly, as they clattered along the winding track which leads over the Bournemouth hills, "has it not seemed to you that of late the Lady Maude is paler and more silent than is her wont?" "It may be so," the other answered shortly. "And would rather sit distrait by her oriel than ride gayly to the chase as of old. Methinks, Alleyne, it is this learning which you have taught her that has taken all the life and sap from her. It is more than she can master, like a heavy spear to a light rider." "Her lady-mother has so ordered it," said Alleyne. "By our Lady! and withouten disrespect," quoth Terlake, "it is in my mind that her lady-mother is more fitted to lead a company to a storming than to have the upbringing of this tender and milk-white maid. Hark ye, lad Alleyne, to what I never told man or woman yet. I love the fair Lady Maude, and would give the last drop of my heart's blood to serve her." He spoke with a gasping voice, and his face flushed crimson in the moonlight. Alleyne said nothing, but his heart seemed to turn to a lump of ice in his bosom. "My father has broad acres," the other continued, "from Fareham Creek to the slope of the Portsdown Hill. There is filling of granges, hewing of wood, malting of grain, and herding of sheep as much as heart could wish, and I the only son. Sure am I that Sir Nigel would be blithe at such a match." "But how of the lady?" asked Alleyne, with dry lips. "Ah, lad, there lies my trouble. It is a toss of the head and a droop of the eyes if I say one word of what is in my mind. 'Twere as easy to woo the snow-dame that we shaped last winter in our castle yard. I did but ask her yesternight for her green veil, that I might bear it as a token or lambrequin upon my helm; but she flashed out at me that she kept it for a better man, and then all in a breath asked pardon for that she had spoke so rudely. Yet she would not take back the words either, nor would she grant the veil. Has it seemed to thee, Alleyne, that she loves any one?" "Nay, I cannot say," said Alleyne, with a wild throb of sudden hope in his heart. "I have thought so, and yet I cannot name the man. Indeed, save myself, and Walter Ford, and you, who are half a clerk, and Father Christopher of the Priory, and Bertrand the page, who is there whom she sees?" "I cannot tell," quoth Alleyne shortly; and the two squires rode on again, each intent upon his own thoughts. Next day at morning lesson the teacher observed that his pupil was indeed looking pale and jaded, with listless eyes and a weary manner. He was heavy-hearted to note the grievous change in her. "Your mistress, I fear, is ill, Agatha," he said to the tire-woman, when the Lady Maude had sought her chamber. The maid looked aslant at him with laughing eyes. "It is not an illness that kills," quoth she. "Pray God not!" he cried. "But tell me, Agatha, what it is that ails her?" "Methinks that I could lay my hand upon another who is smitten with the same trouble," said she, with the same sidelong look. "Canst not give a name to it, and thou so skilled in leech-craft?" "Nay, save that she seems aweary." "Well, bethink you that it is but three days ere you will all be gone, and Castle Twynham be as dull as the Priory. Is there not enough there to cloud a lady's brow?" "In sooth, yes," he answered; "I had forgot that she is about to lose her father." "Her father!" cried the tire-woman, with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie her words. CHAPTER XIII. HOW THE WHITE COMPANY SET FORTH TO THE WARS. St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey. Loud shrieked the brazen bugles from keep and from gateway, and merry was the rattle of the war-drum, as the men gathered in the outer bailey, with torches to light them, for the morn had not yet broken. Alleyne, from the window of the armory, looked down upon the strange scene--the circles of yellow flickering light, the lines of stern and bearded faces, the quick shimmer of arms, and the lean heads of the horses. In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke. Behind were the little clump of steel-clad horsemen, their lances raised, with long pensils drooping down the oaken shafts. So silent and still were they, that they might have been metal-sheathed statues, were it not for the occasional quick, impatient stamp of their chargers, or the rattle of chamfron against neck-plates as they tossed and strained. A spear's length in front of them sat the spare and long-limbed figure of Black Simon, the Norwich fighting man, his fierce, deep-lined face framed in steel, and the silk guidon marked with the five scarlet roses slanting over his right shoulder. All round, in the edge of the circle of the light, stood the castle servants, the soldiers who were to form the garrison, and little knots of women, who sobbed in their aprons and called shrilly to their name-saints to watch over the Wat, or Will, or Peterkin who had turned his hand to the work of war. The young squire was leaning forward, gazing at the stirring and martial scene, when he heard a short, quick gasp at his shoulder, and there was the Lady Maude, with her hand to her heart, leaning up against the wall, slender and fair, like a half-plucked lily. Her face was turned away from him, but he could see, by the sharp intake of her breath, that she was weeping bitterly. "Alas! alas!" he cried, all unnerved at the sight, "why is it that you are so sad, lady?" "It is the sight of these brave men," she answered; "and to think how many of them go and how few are like to find their way back. I have seen it before, when I was a little maid, in the year of the Prince's great battle. I remember then how they mustered in the bailey, even as they do now, and my lady-mother holding me in her arms at this very window that I might see the show." "Please God, you will see them all back ere another year be out," said he. She shook her head, looking round at him with flushed cheeks and eyes that sparkled in the lamp-light. "Oh, but I hate myself for being a woman!" she cried, with a stamp of her little foot. "What can I do that is good? Here I must bide, and talk and sew and spin, and spin and sew and talk. Ever the same dull round, with nothing at the end of it. And now you are going too, who could carry my thoughts out of these gray walls, and raise my mind above tapestry and distaffs. What can I do? I am of no more use or value than that broken bowstave." "You are of such value to me," he cried, in a whirl of hot, passionate words, "that all else has become nought. You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. Oh, Maude, I cannot live without you, I cannot leave you without a word of love. All is changed to me since I have known you. I am poor and lowly and all unworthy of you; but if great love may weigh down such defects, then mine may do it. Give me but one word of hope to take to the wars with me--but one. Ah, you shrink, you shudder! My wild words have frightened you." Twice she opened her lips, and twice no sound came from them. At last she spoke in a hard and measured voice, as one who dare not trust herself to speak too freely. "This is over sudden," she said; "it is not so long since the world was nothing to you. You have changed once; perchance you may change again." "Cruel!" he cried, "who hath changed me?" "And then your brother," she continued with a little laugh, disregarding his question. "Methinks this hath become a family custom amongst the Edricsons. Nay, I am sorry; I did not mean a jibe. But, indeed, Alleyne, this hath come suddenly upon me, and I scarce know what to say." "Say some word of hope, however distant--some kind word that I may cherish in my heart." "Nay, Alleyne, it were a cruel kindness, and you have been too good and true a friend to me that I should use you despitefully. There cannot be a closer link between us. It is madness to think of it. Were there no other reasons, it is enough that my father and your brother would both cry out against it." "My brother, what has he to do with it? And your father----" "Come, Alleyne, was it not you who would have me act fairly to all men, and, certes, to my father amongst them?" "You say truly," he cried, "you say truly. But you do not reject me, Maude? You give me some ray of hope? I do not ask pledge or promise. Say only that I am not hateful to you--that on some happier day I may hear kinder words from you." Her eyes softened upon him, and a kind answer was on her lips, when a hoarse shout, with the clatter of arms and stamping of steeds, rose up from the bailey below. At the sound her face set her eyes sparkled, and she stood with flushed cheek and head thrown back--a woman's body, with a soul of fire. "My father hath gone down," she cried. "Your place is by his side. Nay, look not at me, Alleyne. It is no time for dallying. Win my father's love, and all may follow. It is when the brave soldier hath done his devoir that he hopes for his reward. Farewell, and may God be with you!" She held out her white, slim hand to him, but as he bent his lips over it she whisked away and was gone, leaving in his outstretched hand the very green veil for which poor Peter Terlake had craved in vain. Again the hoarse cheering burst out from below, and he heard the clang of the rising portcullis. Pressing the veil to his lips, he thrust it into the bosom of his tunic, and rushed as fast as feet could bear him to arm himself and join the muster. The raw morning had broken ere the hot spiced ale had been served round and the last farewell spoken. A cold wind blew up from the sea and ragged clouds drifted swiftly across the sky. The Christchurch townsfolk stood huddled about the Bridge of Avon, the women pulling tight their shawls and the men swathing themselves in their gaberdines, while down the winding path from the castle came the van of the little army, their feet clanging on the hard, frozen road. First came Black Simon with his banner, bestriding a lean and powerful dapple-gray charger, as hard and wiry and warwise as himself. After him, riding three abreast, were nine men-at-arms, all picked soldiers, who had followed the French wars before, and knew the marches of Picardy as they knew the downs of their native Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth with lance, sword, and mace, with square shields notched at the upper right-hand

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

blackened

How many times the word 'blackened' appears in the text?

under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

shoving

How many times the word 'shoving' appears in the text?

under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

straight

How many times the word 'straight' appears in the text?

under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

symphony

How many times the word 'symphony' appears in the text?

under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

teeth

How many times the word 'teeth' appears in the text?

under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

yadi

How many times the word 'yadi' appears in the text?

under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

noise

How many times the word 'noise' appears in the text?

under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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under another BUNK now screaming as loud as he can. ZIAT HELP ME! GUARDS! HELP ME! SEVERAL PRISONERS watching from further down the SECOND STORY Kogus now move in sync, turning on their RADIOS loud as possible, drowning out the cries for help, others watching the stairs. BILLY takes the BUNK and throws it over, revealing ZIAT cowering in pure terror. He grabs ZIAT by the hair, hauls him up and LAUNCHES HIS KNEE into HIS FACE. ZIAT thuds onto the floor. BILLY stomps him in the gut hard. ZIAT screams unnaturally shrill. BILLY, driven by supernatural anger, now jumps on him and CLAMPS HIS MOUTH right on ZIAT'S open SCREAM. A STRUGGLING KISS ensues. BILLY pulls back, his mouth filled with blood, spitting out. AN UNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF FLESH which Bits the ground with an odd slow motion grace. ZIAT - CLOSE in terror; throat cords rippling; eyes bulging with disbelief, body quivering, mouth open and screaming, but it is a SILENT SCREAM and the mouth is a dark hole filled with blood and without a TONGUE. BILLY, without a moment's mercy, crashes his fist into ZIAT'S face. ZIAT his strength now broken, collapses on his back. BILLY crashes his fist again into the hated face. He is GRABBED now by a GUARD, but: ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY shakes the GUARD OFF, then as ANOTHER GUARD runs up, BILLY SLAMS him aside and, obsessed, lunges back down on ZIAT and BOTH HANDS CLAMPED TOGETHER high in the air delivers a final blow to ZIAT'S face. The bones shatter. Pause. His ogre unconscious beneath him, BILLY, now in SLOW MOTION, EXTENDS HIS ARMS IN THE AIR - in the fighter's victory gesture, and his eyes glow with the fever in them, and with his mouth and face bloodied, he looks like a savage. No longer Billy Hayes. SHARP CUT: BILLY bound in a thick leather belt (a kiyis) which screws tightly around the waist and cinches the hands together, is being HAULED in continuing SLOW MOTION through a huge DOOR somewhere in one of the cavernous corridors of the prison.The door is approximately NINE FEET by SIX FEET, strong and wooden with a circular iron handle which one of the GUARDS now pulls open; a GLIMPSE of darkness within. THE DOOR CLOSES. SUPERIMPOSE: SECTION 13 - ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE A YEAR LATER MAX, barely recognizable in a torn sheet and with a blackened face, comes rushing into a crowded ROOM, screaming louder than any other inmate. marks on his face, He is enraged, blood dripping from scratch ATTENDANTS in white smocks chase him over the beds. Max is yelling in Turkish. MAX Please, will you listen to me? Will someone please listen to me? JUST LISTEN To ME! ATTENDANTS Hamidou! Get Hamidou! Get the Kiyisl! The ATTENDANTS wrestle with him, but he throws them off, tearing around the room mindlessly. In the process we see that not much attention is paid him because everybody else is crazy! There are 50 other LUNATICS yelling at each other in fights over sheets, blankets, beds, cigarettes, jumping: screaming, pushing, shoving; some babbling to themselves, rocking, crying, chanting, singing. Several of them (the craziest) are stark naked. some, wrapped in torn blackened sheets, patrol the room like quick ferrets, sharp eyes open for anything they can steal. Others move in meaningless, blank-eyed silence. The walls are filthy black and join the ceilings in arches rather than angles, giving the look of an old dungeon. Fifty beds are lined up right next to each other so that you walk right into your bed. A constant nerve-racking NOISE. HAMIDOU bursts into the ROOM, the angry look in his eyes spelling real trouble for Max. MOVE with him as he sweep sin on MAX and picks him up with one move and SMASHES HIM against the wall. Max hardly notices. ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the leather kiyis from an ATTENDANT, moves in on MAX and starts clamping it around him. AN ATTENDANT walks through the room with an apron containing several large pockets bulging with red, green, blue, white PILLS, which he distributes by the handful. ATTENDANT (crying out) Hop! Hop! Hop! Full moon. Hop! Hop! Hop! THE LUNATICS gobble them up as if they were candy. In some of the clustered areas, nine lunatics occupy as little as three beds. MAX is tightly bound now by HAMIDOU, but his body arches against the bindings, his neck straining, his teeth snapping at the air. HAMIDOU grabs him with one hand by the leather waist, hauls him high up in the air and THROWS MAX half-ways across the room, MAX smashing heavily against some beds, continuing to SCREAM OFF as: THE ATTENDANT with the pills-now bypasses BILLY on one of the beds. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Full Moon - take your pills! BILLY gobbles them up. He has changed. Lines in his face. No smile, no sense of humor; a brooding silence about him, a straight ahead look. He pays no attention to MAX off; he is in grubby white pyjamas and shower sandals. Rolls back onto hi& bed with its filthy torn sheet, totally ignoring the surrounding commotion, and ANOTHER ANGLE - turning onto his shoulder, BILLY suddenly finds himself face to face with a dark saddened visage. The MAN is very young and stark naked but for an old black rag wrapped around his head and clutched under his chin. His eyes are yellow, the voice pleading. YOUNG MAN Cigare? (pause, same tone, holds out his palm) Cigare? Cigare? BILLY shakes his head sharply --too sharply --and barks, irritable. BILLY Go away! Turns on his other shoulder, trying to sleep. YOUNG MAN (OFF) Cigare? Cigare? YOUNG MAN in a surprisingly meek tone. YOUNG MAN S'il Vous plait, Monsieur? S'il vous plait? BILLY, really aggravated now, springs up from the bed, and in the quirky way the mad and the eccentric adopt walks determinedly away from the young man, looking back to shake his head bizarrely at him one more time. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY walking down the aisle bypasses MAX int he kiyis, rolling on the floor, still screaming in Turkish. MAX Will you listen to me? PLEASE LISTEN TO ME! Several LUNATICS are gathered around tormenting him, one of them yanking on his penis as if it were made of rubber; another is playing with his ass. A third one, also in a leather kiyis, is leaning over MAX jabbering and drooling into his face. MAX, more enraged by this than the other bodily offences, lunges up sharply and bites the man's FACE. SCREAMS, etc. BILLY, paying no attention except for a brief disinterested glance, keeps going into: A SECOND ROOM. MORE LUNATICS. A screaming OLD MAN is chasing after another OLD MAN who has stolen his tespe beads, waving them back at the first old man who howls with rage, frantic to have his beads back. The second old man throws the beads to a THIRD OLD MAN who hops across the beds with the FIRST OLD MAN chasing him. BILLY intersects. OLD MAN (pleading) Allah! Allah! Yok! Yok! Yok! Brack! A LITTLE NERVOUS MAN stares into a broken pocket mirror fingering the large round carbuncle under his eye, trying to rub it away with little grimaces and flurries of nervous motion. TWO ATTENDANTS in smocks indifferently finish eating on a newspaper spread across one of the beds; they shake out the paper. CHICKEN BONES, ORANGE PEELS hitting the floor. A flurry of movement, as the LUNATICS scuffle like rats over the left- overs. AD LIB curses, yells. AN OLD MAN obscenely gestures to BILLY from his bed. OLD MAN Hey American. Fik! Fick! Come. Fik! Fik! His blackened teeth leer. BILLY, seemingly immune to all of this in some private island of his own madness, walks in his determined way past a PARTITION to: A CIRCULAR STONE STAIRCASE leading downwards, the stones damp, dark, slippery. BILLY continues with the same straight- ahead determination to: A LONER LEVEL. at last BILLY's expression changes to almost childish relief, for here at last is the refuge he seeks the relative comfort and silence of THE WHEEL. It is a grim, squat PILLAR dominating the room and bearing the weight of the ceiling. And around it some SIXTY LUNATICS trudge slowly, near silently, in counter-clockwise flow. It is a hypnotic shuffle and BILLY blends right in, sliding easily into the sluggish, mindless river, his eyes hanging loosely on the floor, watching: THE SOOTHING RHYTHM OF FEET shuffling at a comforting pace. These are the spokes of the wheel. CUT: TWO TINY BARE LIGHT-BULBS give faint, eerie illumination to the chamber. One one side, a pot-bellied stove flickers, etching the shadows of the walkers in a strange orange glow. SOME LUNATICS, not walking, hover around the stove. OTHERS are jammed onto a low L-shaped wooden platform that runs the length of two walls. of these men are naked, covered with open running sores over their knees, elbows, buttocks. But they are much quieter than the upstairs crowd. They are the lowest order of madmen. They have no minds left. They are the damned. BILLY walks among them, expressionless. A tall, thin cadaverous TURK with a grizzled beard now shuffles up alongside BILLY, looks at him, walks with him. is about fifty, his pyjamas relatively clean, looking more sane than the average but his eyes are bright and scary and his wet hair is matted down on his head, and big clumps of it have been pulled out. He speaks with a cultured English accent. AHMET You're an American? BILLY is interrupted but keeps his eyes on the ground. AHMET doesn't wait for an answer. AHMET Ah yes, America! My name is Ahmet. I studied philosophy at Harvard for many many years. But actually Oxford is my real Alma Mata - I've also studied in Vienna. Now I study here. BILLY doesn't notice, shuffles along. AHMET ...They put me here. They say I raped a little boy. I have been here very long time. They will never let me go. BILLY pays no attention, keeps shuffling on. Glances at him, smiles. AHMET They won't let YOU go either. The smug certainty of his manner reaches some chord deep inside Billy, because Billy glances briefly at this lunatic who is smiling. Billy looks back at his feet. AHMET No, they'll never let you go. They tell you they let you go but you stay. You never go from here. BILLY plods on. grins and tries to explain the situation like a father lecturing a child. AHMET You see we all come from a factory. Sometimes the factory makes bad machines that don't work. They put them here. The bad machines don't know they're bad machines, but the people at the factory know. They know one of the machines that doesn't work... They walk on. Ahmet's expression changes. AHMET (polite) I think we have spoken enough for today. I say good night to you. He wraps his rags around himself quite carefully and we FOLLOW him out of the circle. He drops to his hands and knees and with a sense of dignity, crawls into the filthy blackness under the L-shaped wooden platform, disappearing like a cockroach. BILLY plods on. CUT: AN OLD WHITE-BEARDED MADMAN the Hoja, grandiose in his rags, leads MUSLIM PRAYER in the first ROOM. Some of his followers have prayer mats, others a scrap of sheet or newspaper; their tones discordant, still pushing and shoving at each other during the prayer. TWO SPASTICS can't follow the routine of kneeling and bending; they tangle up absurdly and fall to the floor in a ball of arms and legs. A FALAKA STICK pokes BILLY wake SOUND of the CHANTING fills room. It is evidently impossible to distinguish night from day because there are no windows. ATTENDANTS poke the LUNATICS awake with their "clubs. ATTENDANTS Head count! Head count! CUT: A MASS OF LUNATICS in the ROOM all at once. Attendants take a redundant and comic head count. The place sounds like a "yadi yadi room" the noise fearsome. ANOTHER ANGLE ATTENDANT #1 Sixty two, sixty three, sixty four.... ATTENDANT #2 Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.. .get back there, you! . . . seventy five, seventy six....) ATTENDANTS poke around underneath a bed and pull out a very old trembling VEGETABLE. OTHER ATTENDANTS wrap an old DEAD LUNATIC with no teeth and foam on his open lips into a dirty sheet and haul him away. BILLY amid the LUNATICS. We MOVE closer and closer to him, the head COUNT regressing. The room has become a torture cell - the NOISE LOUDER, LOUDER, closing in on Billy. CUT: BILLY is led down a CORRIDOR by HAMIDOU into: A VISITING room - Cabins are lined up like narrow wooden phone booths. HAMIDOU Kabin on-yedi BILLY plods without interest to the specified cabin, closes the door, sits in the chair. No one is there. He waits - indifferent to any sense of time. Dirty two glass panes separate visitor and prisoner booths; bars are between the panes. An erratic microphone is the method of communication, giving a weird and distant aspect to the voice. HAMIDOU opens a small peep-hole in the cabin door, looks in unseen as: TEE VISITOR DOOR opens and SUSAN tentatively walks in holding a large photo album; it takes several moments for her to react, and then her face shows the shock. BILLY stares at her, his face rabid, decaying; if he remembers her even, he doesn't register it because she is a shock to him as well. Reality, the outside world all at once. His mind is spinning, unbalanced, unable to grasp it. SUSAN (OFF) Oh my God...! SUSAN SUSAN Billy, what have they done to you...my God! The MICROPHONE makes her voice jarring, gagged. She looks silently. No sobbing, no big sad looks. Just shock. Shock of recognition, shock of time gone by. BILLY looking at her, his eyes moving down to: BILLY P.O.V. - SUSAN, her neck, her breasts straining against the thin shirt. SUSAN fingers the photo album nervously, speaking slow and distinct; not sure she is communicating. SUSAN ...Billy, your family is fine. Senator Buckley just made a special plea on your behalf in the Senate. Newsday has written several big articles about you. They've called you a pawn in the poppy game between Nixon and the Turks. The letters are coming in, Billy. People care.... Stops, shakes her head. It sounds all wrong in this context. BILLY is still staring at her breasts. He hasn't seen a woman for five years and now a hungry animal look comes into his eyes He moves suddenly pressing up against the glass, rabid. And in Turkish: BILLY (in Turkish) Take it off. Take it off! (then remembering the English) Take it off. Take it off! His voice is savage, demanding. SUSAN understands, startled. Looks around. SUSAN Billy - you'll just make yourself crazy. BILLY BILLY Take it off! Take it off! (suddenly in a very soft voice) ...S'il vous plait?... A strange look in his eye. SUSAN slowly, scared, begins to unbutton her shirt. HAMIDOU looks on silently, does nothing. BILLY follows every movement with wild-eyed lust. SUSAN leans up close to the window. With both hands on the front of her blouse, she slowly draws it apart. BILLY going wild! Against the window. His hand down in his pyjamas. HER BREASTS spring free, quivering, full and ripe with a deep cleavage and hard dark nipples. They hang full and loose. FULL SCREEN BILLY'S EYES - FULL SCREEN. BILLY beats on the window, working his mouth soundlessly. SUSAN is shattered, scared of Billy's sanity. SUSAN Oh Billy, Billy, I wish I could make it better for you. Please don't... don't... Tears. Fear. BILLY tightens dramatically and comes right in his pants, slumps against the window. SUSAN realizes he has come, surprised. BILLY looks at her. Furtive, animal shame. And suddenly he starts to cry. A flood of feelings locked up too long come pouring out. He murmurs some words, Turkish SOUNDS sputtering out in his throat, then: BILLY S.... Susan? Softly, working his mouth finding it hard to speak. SUSAN yearning. Tears sprinkling her eyes. SUSAN Yes, Billy? BILLY straining, not out of physical weakness but an emotional one. Sputters, eyes closed. BILLY ...I love you.... It sounds pathetic, lost. SUSAN is worked up to the limit, tries to hug him through the window. SUSAN Oh Billy... Billy! Don't give up. Please don't give up. You'll get out. I know you will! Remembers something. Grabs the PHOTO ALBUM with all her strength, holding it up for him to see through the glass.Then remembering herself, looks around the room to make sure they're alone and in a contained voice: SUSAN Billy, your father gave me this for you. There's pictures of your Mom and Dad...Rob...Peg... BILLY looks at it listlessly. HIS P.V.O - SUSAN holding the album open to PICTURES of his MOTHER and FATHER in front of the house, ROB on a bicycle, PEG in her cheer-leading outfit. SUSAN And there's pictures in the back of your old Mr. Franklin. Remember him... From the bank? A certain tone slips into her voice. SUSAN He's over in Greece now. He bought a ticket. BILLY looks from the album to Susan. Possibly there is a gleam of understanding in his eyes but it is very faint. An Attendant BANGS on Susan's door, OFF. VOICE Visiting is over. SUSAN quickly puts the album away as if it were a hidden weapon. SUSAN I'll give it to them for you. She buttons her blouse but her eyes are worried, on Billy. SUSAN You were right Billy don't count on them, you hear, don't count on anybody but yourself! The ATTENDANT now swings open her door, annoyed. ATTENDANT Let's go! Susan stands, about to go, then suddenly leans up close to the bars, hard and practical. SUSAN (quickly) If you stay you'll die Billy! Get out of here. Get to Greece, you hear me?...Billy? Pause. Silence. She closes her eyes, in pain; she doesn't think she has reached him. She turns to go, resigned. BILLY looking at her. Behind him HAMIDOU opens the door. A calm and cunning look on his face, glancing with Billy towards A BRIEF GLIMPSE of SUSAN looking back, the album under her arm. The door closes. CUT: BILLY, with the same deadened expression as before, comes down the STAIRS towards THE WHEEL. It is early morning and the walkers haven't started yet. Billy looks at the Pillar a dire look of reflection passing over his eyes. Then he starts walking but in a clockwise motion, opposite the normal pattern; in the same methodical manner as before. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY, on the inner track, passes TWO LUNATICS who are walking counter-clockwise. They glare at him, motion for him to turn around. Billy just keeps walking. BILLY intersects several more LUNATICS going counter- clockwise They motion for him to turn. LUNATIC (grunting) Gower! Tries to block Billy's way, but BILLY shakes his head, brushes by him - determined. AHMET Slides up next to BILLY in his rags. AHMET Good morning, my American friend! There will be trouble if you go this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is communist. Right is good. You must go the other way... It's Good. More LUNATICS join the flow, gesturing or grunting at BILLY. BILLY STOPS, turns, looks at the rest of them slogging in the usual direction, looks as if he 'sees' them; and he walks out of the wheel, towards the stairs. AHMET curious about his unusual behavior, follows BILLY. AHMET Why you go? Why don't you walk the wheel with us? (suspiciously leaning forward, suddenly realizing the answer) The bad machine doesn't know he's a bad machine. You still don't believe it? You still don't believe you're a bad machine? ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET at the base of the STAIRS. BILLY carries on up the stairs. AHMET (shakes his head) To know oneself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows. That's why they put you here. You'll see. You'll find out. Later on you'll know. BILLY stops and turns to look at AHMET. His eyes glint with special knowledge and he takes AHMET into his confidence using the latter's tone of voice: BILLY I already know. I know that you're a bad machine. That's why the factory keeps you here. (Lowers s voice) You know how I know? I know because I'm from the factory. I make the machines.. I'm here to spy on you. Eyes narrow. Surprise. Fear. He shuffles away. BILLY looks at him and turns up the STAIRS. CUT: BILLY in his BED. The usual UPROAR. THE ATTENDANT comes by with the pills, offers a handful to BILLY. ATTENDANT Hop! Hop! Take! He takes them, puts a few into his mouth, swallows. Reflective, unsure. A RADIO playing OFF blares suddenly with the U.S. Armed Forces Station - JANIS JOPLIN singing "Take another piece of my heat now, Baby" then it's switched back to a TURKISH STATION, loud. Billy rises. BILLY enters the TOILET with the PHOTO ALBUM tightly clutched under his arm. A dark stone room, very shadowy. Piles of waste on the floor. A vacant-eyed barefoot LUNATIC shuffles past BILLY who goes to one of the four partitioned HOLES cut into the floor. ANOTHER ANGLE - BILLY squats over it and with his filthy long nails he starts to slit open the back binder of the album Susan gave him. Flickering shadows. He looks up absently. THREE LUNATIC FACES stare in at him through wooden slats, tongues hanging out and drooling - playing with themselves - OFF. BILLY makes a lunatic face and SCREAM kicking at the partition. BILLY Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! THE LUNATICS, petrified, scatter off but ONE LUNATIC skids in a puddle of urine and crashes onto the tile howling. BILLY slits open the binder to reveal TEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS with Pictures of Mr. Franklin' neatly inserted. ANOTHER ANGLE BILLY has no particular expression on his face. Reflective, staring at the money; he looks up. A LARGE SILHOUETTE is moving towards him. BILLY just watches, transfixed, not trying to hide the money. HAMIDOU comes into a faint light, looking down at him; glances at the money. Shakes his head gently. HAMIDOU No do! No do! Reaches for and: ANOTHER ANGLE - HAMIDOU takes the money from BILLY like candy from a baby, then takes him by the ear and slowly lifts him up. Billy is like a vegetable in his hands. HAMIDOU (in his broken English) I tell you I see 'gain... (into Turkish) I take you down to bath and your feet be big like...Breasts (a gesture) HAMIDOU leads BILLY roughly out of the lunatic room, pulling him by the ear. HAMIDOU still Pulling BILLY by the ear, guides him through the GUARD QUARTERS. HAMIDOU leads him up a narrow winding flight of STAIRS. HAMIDO First you make mistake with Ziat, now you make mistake with money. You're not a new Prisoner, Vilyum Hi-yes. The tone of his voice indicates a severe reckoning this time. HAMIDOU pulls BILLY by the ear into a large echoing BATH. BILLY looking, bent over by the ear - a hint of awareness of new surroundings. ANOTHER ANGLE - the BATH is deserted, spooky with greenish Yellow fish light flittering down from holes in ceiling around damp mossy arches. Steam rises off a bath. Benches, buckets of water. HAMIDOU swings BILLY around until he is facing him. HAMIDOU makes an elaborate gesture of putting aside his falaka stick and holstered gun; he will use his hands. HAMIDOU (shakes his head) You've been in prison too long, Vilyum Hi-yes. He takes that: stiff arm all the way back to its full arc and WHACKS BILLY up against the wall. BILLY bounces back off the wall. The print of Hamidou's fingers is imbedded like a flaring white rainbow in the redness of his left cheek. SLAM - a backhanded whack. BILLY bounces right back from the wall. steadies him. HAMIDOU You go crazy here Vilyum Hi-yes. Many people go crazy here. Best thing for crazy people is this... THE BLOW, in SLOW MOTION comes sailing into: BILLY, and we see the brief boxer's distortion of all his face as he flies upwards and back into: THE BENCH smashing it. Echo like jarring F.X. BILLY is held up by the PAJAMAS, steadied. The Turkish words seem far away, incomprehensible. HAMIDOU (OFF) Vilyum Hi-yes. You die here, Hi- yes. WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW, but: HAMIDOU this time holds onto the pajamas using Billy like a punching bag. WHACK - A REVERSE BLOW. HAMIDOU increasingly excited. HAMIDOU Babba sikijam! I fuck your mother, I fuck your sister... WHACK - ANOTHER BLOW in SLOW MOTION HAMIDOU ...I fuck your father, I fuck your brother... RIP! - a loud SOUND as HAMIDOU moves with a blur of speed, and shreds BILLY's pajamas with his hands. BILLY naked, totally passive, semiconscious. HAMIDOU suddenly shifts position and snaps Billy into a strenuous wrestling hold across his knee on the steamy floor. He loosens him up by cracking his bones along his back. HAMIDOU - sweat pouring off his face, excited. HAMIDOU ...And I fuck your grandmother and I fuck your pretty girlfriend... And I fuck you Hi-yes!) A bizarre otherworldly scene. This man is dredging Billy through a sadistic imagination sparked by the steam, the sweat, and an ethnic identification with a Turkish steam bath as a bedroom. He loosens his hold abruptly, rises, moves off as: BILLY holds himself on his knees, head sunk on his chest, gasping for breath, about to vomit. Pause; he looks up horrified at: HAMIDOU pouring fresh buckets of water on the floor. SSSSSSSSSS! The awakened STEAM coils like a snake into every cranny of the little room. BLURRED VISUALS - HAMIDOU stripping his shirt off. A huge muscular flash of chest, A BELT being snapped open. BILLY waiting. A FIGURE moving through the steam, closer. BILLY backing away from it. STEAM - a glint of a FACE coming through. HAMIDOU - his eyes so intense they seem to burn off the steam like sun cutting haze. Then disappear again. BILLY pulls back. A pause. Silence. Cat and mouse. Then very suddenly: A HAND reaches out of the STEAM and GRABS BILLY by the hair. A GRUNT, OFF. BILLY his eyes moving fast. A FLASH of a huge darkened penis, fully erect cutting forward into the steam like a from drill, detached from the rest of the body. A SOUND - grotesque and so sudden after the silence it jars the senses. A BLURRED VISUAL then: BILLY Launching forward in SLOW MOTION, desperation distorting his features and: STEAM - then BILLY'S HEAD SLAMS through it in SLOW MOTION and: SMASHES the penis with its skull. A horrifying GASP. BLURRED VISUALS - STEAM - HAMIDOU staggering CLOSE - surprise, pain... BILLY MOVING. A FOOT coming up fast through the steam, connecting again with the genitals. Another SCREAM. A BODY hitting the tiles. BILLY groping for the falaka stick. Raises it. A STRUGGLE - Two bodies thrashing, one of them screaming now in pain. A definitive sound then a THWACK! Another thwack! The steam seems to clear and BILLY is on top of the gigantic HAMIDOU smashing him with the falaka stick with all his might. HAMIDOU is in contortions, his nose busted and bleeding. His HAND gripping BILLY by the neck, forcing him back and strangling him at the same time. Billy is red in the face, such is the force of this creature but continues to beat him, harder, harder. His expression filled with a life energy, seeded in hatred, that he thought he had lost. Again, Again - BILLY Babba sikijam, Hamidu! I fuck your Mother, I fuck your daughter, I fuck your sons, I fuck your wife! The BAND slips from his throat, then springs up desperately again and clenches Billy's whole face with one gigantic palm, clawing to get in, then just as quickly slips away. BILLY beats on - again, again. BLOOD flows fast in agitated swirls into the little pool. CUT: BILLY opens a door gently, moves across an empty CORRIDOR, dressed in and gun in intense. Hamidou's holster. large uniform with his He looks shaken, weak, falaka stick dizzy but VOICE (OFF) How about a shoe shine, friend? BILLY starts, clenches the falaka stick ready to spring, spins. A LITTLE SHOESHINE BOY is his case down the corridor. BILLY has not seen a child in a long time. get words out, then manages: Surprised. Can't get the words out, then manages: BILLY No! THE KID shrugs, moves on, looking At Billy strangely. BILLY goes up a flight of STAIRS. Ahead, VOICES passing. He stops. Goes on. BILLY goes through an empty GUARD QUARTERS. BILLY is in another CORRIDOR, approaches A SMALL PORTAL, daylight at its edges. Locked? BILLY, tense, tries it. It swings open on: DAYLIGHT! BILLY squints. Adjusting to the harsh sensation. AN ISTANBUL STREET - TRAFFIC, SOUNDS. TWO GUARDS approaching the portal in the distance, drinking soda pop. BILLY steps back, straightens his clothes, steps out briskly and at such an angle that THE TWO GUARDS don't notice him in the traffic as they enter the open portal. LONG SHOT - BILLY walking down the street, looking back, almost bewildered, not quiet believing this. CUT: TIGHT - RAILROAD TICKET being stamped. SOUND - SNAP. MOVE UP to TICKET CLERK behind a grill. VOICE (OFF) Edirne to Uzun Kopru? THE CLERK looks puzzled. BILLY is on the other side of the grill. A ill-fitting new Western style suit, a hat over his dyed black hair; totally paranoid. He hasn't slept in three days and the bruises from the Hamidou beating now show clearly black and blue on his face. His

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understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

eyebrows

How many times the word 'eyebrows' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

understand

How many times the word 'understand' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

submit

How many times the word 'submit' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

place

How many times the word 'place' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

dubious

How many times the word 'dubious' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

written

How many times the word 'written' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

without

How many times the word 'without' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

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understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

marsh-

How many times the word 'marsh-' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

neck

How many times the word 'neck' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

seem

How many times the word 'seem' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

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understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

act

How many times the word 'act' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

means

How many times the word 'means' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

ladies

How many times the word 'ladies' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

conduct

How many times the word 'conduct' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

those

How many times the word 'those' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

judgment

How many times the word 'judgment' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

stand

How many times the word 'stand' appears in the text?

understand churches much, I shall go and see it. I shall run down on Wednesday, and shall sleep at the inn at Lessboro'. I see that Lessboro' is a market town, and I suppose there is an inn. I shall go over to my friend on the Thursday, but shall return to Lessboro'. Though a man be ever so eager to see a church door-way, he need not sleep at the parsonage. On the following day, I will get over to Nuncombe Putney, and I hope that you will see me. Considering my long friendship with you, and my great attachment to your father and mother, I do not think that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need hesitate in the matter. I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings towards him just at present are of such a nature as to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of cordiality. Dear Emily, Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend, FREDERIC OSBORNE. When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her husband had certainly chosen to regard him. When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor, according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social, or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before Mrs. Stanbury, and Priscilla, and her sister, that she had received a letter from Colonel Osborne. She felt that the colour had come to her cheek, and that she could not even walk out of the room as though the letter had been a matter of indifference to her. And would it have been a matter of indifference had there been nobody there to see her? Mrs. Trevelyan was certainly not in love with Colonel Osborne. She was not more so now than she had been when her father's friend, purposely dressed for the occasion, had kissed her in the vestry of the church in which she was married, and had given her a blessing, which was then intended to be semi-paternal,--as from an old man to a young woman. She was not in love with him,--never would be, never could be in love with him. Reader, you may believe in her so far as that. But where is the woman, who, when she is neglected, thrown over, and suspected by the man that she loves, will not feel the desire of some sympathy, some solicitude, some show of regard from another man? This woman's life, too, had not hitherto been of such a nature that the tranquillity of the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney afforded to her all that she desired. She had been there now a month, and was almost sick from the want of excitement. And she was full of wrath against her husband. Why had he sent her there to break her heart in a disgraceful retirement, when she had never wronged him? From morning to night she had no employment, no amusement, nothing to satisfy her cravings. Why was she to be doomed to such an existence? She had declared that as long as she could have her boy with her, she would be happy. She was allowed to have her boy; but she was anything but happy. When she received Colonel Osborne's letter,--while she held it in her hand still unopened, she never for a moment thought that that could make her happy. But there was in it something of excitement. And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits. He cared for her. He was gracious to her. He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct. He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband. Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man? Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment. Acting on her own judgment, she read Colonel Osborne's letter from first to last. She knew that he was wrong to speak of coming to Nuncombe Putney; but yet she thought that she would see him. She had a dim perception that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, on broken ground which might fall under her without a moment's warning, and yet she would not retreat from the danger. Though Colonel Osborne was wrong, very wrong in coming to see her, yet she liked him for coming. Though she would be half afraid to tell her news to Mrs. Stanbury, and more than half afraid to tell Priscilla, yet she liked the excitement of the fear. Nora would scold her; but Nora's scolding she thought she could answer. And then it was not the fact that Colonel Osborne was coming down to Devonshire to see her. He was coming as far as Lessboro' to see his friend at Cockchaffington. And when at Lessboro', was it likely that he should leave the neighbourhood without seeing the daughter of his old ally? And why should he do so? Was he to be unnatural in his conduct, uncivil and unfriendly, because Mr. Trevelyan had been foolish, suspicious, and insane? So arguing with herself, she answered Colonel Osborne's letter before she had spoken on the subject to any one in the house,--and this was her answer:-- MY DEAR COLONEL OSBORNE, I must leave it to your own judgment to decide whether you will come to Nuncombe Putney or not. There are reasons which would seem to make it expedient that you should stay away,--even though circumstances are bringing you into the immediate neighbourhood. But of these reasons I will leave you to be the judge. I will never let it be said that I myself have had cause to dread the visit of any old friend. Nevertheless, if you stay away, I shall understand why you do so. Personally, I shall be glad to see you,--as I have always been. It seems odd to me that I cannot write in warmer tones to my father's and mother's oldest friend. Of course, you will understand that though I shall readily see you if you call, I cannot ask you to stay. In the first place, I am not now living in my own house. I am staying with Mrs. Stanbury, and the place is called the Clock House. Yours very sincerely, EMILY TREVELYAN. The Clock House, Nuncombe Putney, Monday. Soon after she had written it, Nora came into her room, and at once asked concerning the letter which she had seen delivered to her sister that morning. "It was from Colonel Osborne," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "From Colonel Osborne! How very wrong!" "I don't see that it is wrong at all. Because Louis is foolish and mad, that cannot make another man wrong for doing the most ordinary thing in the world." "I had hoped it had been from Louis," said Nora. "Oh dear, no. He is by no means so considerate. I do not suppose I shall hear from him, till he chooses to give some fresh order about myself or my child. He will hardly trouble himself to write to me, unless he takes up some new freak to show me that he is my master." "And what does Colonel Osborne say?" "He is coming here." "Coming here?" almost shouted Nora. "Yes; absolutely here. Does it sound to you as if Lucifer himself were about to show his face? The fact is, he happens to have a friend in the neighbourhood whom he has long promised to visit; and as he must be at Lessboro', he does not choose to go away without the compliment of a call. It will be as much to you as to me." "I don't want to see him in the least," said Nora. "There is his letter. As you seem to be so suspicious, you had better read it." Then Nora read it. "And there is a copy of my answer," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I shall keep both, because I know so well what ill-natured things people will say." "Dear Emily, do not send it," said Nora. "Indeed I shall. I will not be frightened by bugbears. And I will not be driven to confess to any man on earth that I am afraid to see him. Why should I be afraid of Colonel Osborne? I will not submit to acknowledge that there can be any danger in Colonel Osborne. Were I to do so I should be repeating the insult against myself. If my husband wished to guide me in such matters, why did he not stay with me?" Then she went out into the village and posted the letter. Nora meanwhile was thinking whether she would call in the assistance of Priscilla Stanbury; but she did not like to take any such a step in opposition to her sister. CHAPTER XXI. SHEWING HOW COLONEL OSBORNE WENT TO NUNCOMBE PUTNEY. Colonel Osborne was expected at Nuncombe Putney on the Friday, and it was Thursday evening before either Mrs. Stanbury or Priscilla was told of his coming. Emily had argued the matter with Nora, declaring that she would make the communication herself, and that she would make it when she pleased and how she pleased. "If Mrs. Stanbury thinks," said she, "that I am going to be treated as a prisoner, or that I will not judge myself as to whom I may see, or whom I may not see, she is very much mistaken." Nora felt that were she to give information to those ladies in opposition to her sister's wishes, she would express suspicion on her own part by doing so; and she was silent. On that same Thursday Priscilla had written her last defiant letter to her aunt,--that letter in which she had cautioned her aunt to make no further accusations without being sure of her facts. To Priscilla's imagination that coming of Lucifer in person, of which Mrs. Trevelyan had spoken, would hardly have been worse than the coming of Colonel Osborne. When, therefore, Mrs. Trevelyan declared the fact on the Thursday evening, vainly endeavouring to speak of the threatened visit in an ordinary voice, and as of an ordinary circumstance, it was as though a thunderbolt had fallen upon them. "Colonel Osborne coming here!" said Priscilla, mindful of the Stanbury correspondence,--mindful of the evil tongues of the world. "And why not?" demanded Mrs. Trevelyan, who had heard nothing of the Stanbury correspondence. "Oh dear, oh dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Stanbury, who, of course, was aware of all that had passed between the Clock House and the house in the Close, though the letters had been written by her daughter. Nora was determined to stand up for her sister, whatever might be the circumstances of the case. "I wish Colonel Osborne were not coming," said she, "because it makes a foolish fuss; but I cannot understand how anybody can suppose it to be wrong that Emily should see papa's very oldest friend in the world." "But why is he coming?" demanded Priscilla. "Because he wants to see an acquaintance at Cockchaffington," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "and there is a wonderful church-door there." "A church-fiddlestick!" said Priscilla. The matter was debated throughout all the evening. At one time there was a great quarrel between the ladies, and then there was a reconciliation. The point on which Mrs. Trevelyan stood with the greatest firmness was this,--that it did not become her, as a married woman whose conduct had always been good and who was more careful as to that than she was even of her name, to be ashamed to meet any man. "Why should I not see Colonel Osborne, or Colonel anybody else who might call here with the same justification for calling which his old friendship gives him?" Priscilla endeavoured to explain to her that her husband's known wishes ought to hinder her from doing so. "My husband should have remained with me to express his wishes," Mrs. Trevelyan replied. Neither could Mrs. Stanbury nor could Priscilla bring herself to say that the man should not be admitted into the house. In the course of the debate, in the heat of her anger, Mrs. Trevelyan declared that were any such threat held out to her, she would leave the house and see Colonel Osborne in the street, or at the inn. "No, Emily; no," said Nora. "But I will. I will not submit to be treated as a guilty woman, or as a prisoner. They may say what they like; but I won't be shut up." "No one has tried to shut you up," said Priscilla. "You are afraid of that old woman at Exeter," said Mrs. Trevelyan; for by this time the facts of the Stanbury correspondence had all been elicited in general conversation; "and yet you know how uncharitable and malicious she is." "We are not afraid of her," said Priscilla. "We are afraid of nothing but of doing wrong." "And will it be wrong to let an old gentleman come into the house," said Nora, "who is nearly sixty, and who has known us ever since we were born?" "If he is nearly sixty, Priscilla," said Mrs. Stanbury, "that does seem to make a difference." Mrs. Stanbury herself was only just sixty, and she felt herself to be quite an old woman. "They may be devils at eighty," said Priscilla. "Colonel Osborne is not a devil at all," said Nora. "But mamma is so foolish," said Priscilla. "The man's age does not matter in the least." "I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Stanbury, very humbly. At that time the quarrel was raging, but afterwards came the reconciliation. Had it not been for the Stanbury correspondence the fact of Colonel Osborne's threatened visit would have been admitted as a thing necessary--as a disagreeable necessity; but how was the visit to be admitted and passed over in the teeth of that correspondence? Priscilla felt very keenly the peculiar cruelty of her position. Of course Aunt Stanbury would hear of the visit. Indeed, any secrecy in the matter was not compatible with Priscilla's ideas of honesty. Her aunt had apologised humbly for having said that Colonel Osborne had been at Nuncombe. That apology, doubtless, had been due. Colonel Osborne had not been at Nuncombe when the accusation had been made, and the accusation had been unjust and false. But his coming had been spoken of by Priscilla in her own letters as an occurrence which was quite out of the question. Her anger against her aunt had been for saying that the man had come, not for objecting to such a visit. And now the man was coming, and Aunt Stanbury would know all about it. How great, how terrible, how crushing would be Aunt Stanbury's triumph! "I must write and tell her," said Priscilla. "I am sure I shall not object," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "And Hugh must be told," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You may tell all the world, if you like," said Mrs. Trevelyan. In this way it was settled among them that Colonel Osborne was to be received. On the next morning, Friday morning, Colonel Osborne, doubtless having heard something of Mrs. Crocket from his friend at Cockchaffington, was up early, and had himself driven over to Nuncombe Putney before breakfast. The ever-watchful Bozzle was, of course, at his heels,--or rather, not at his heels on the first two miles of the journey; for Bozzle, with painful zeal, had made himself aware of all the facts, and had started on the Nuncombe Putney road half an hour before the Colonel's fly was in motion. And when the fly passed him he was lying discreetly hidden behind an old oak. The driver, however, had caught a glimpse of him as he was topping a hill, and having seen him about on the previous day, and perceiving that he was dressed in a decent coat and trousers, and that, nevertheless, he was not a gentleman, began to suspect that he was--somebody. There was a great deal said afterwards about Bozzle in Mrs. Clegg's yard at Lessboro'; but the Lessboro' mind was never able to satisfy itself altogether respecting Bozzle and his mission. As to Colonel Osborne and his mission, the Lessboro' mind did satisfy itself with much certainty. The horse was hardly taken from out of Colonel Osborne's fly in Mrs. Crocket's yard when Bozzle stepped into the village by a path which he had already discovered, and soon busied himself among the tombs in the churchyard. Now, one corner of the churchyard was immediately opposite to the iron gate leading into the Clock House. "Drat 'un," said the wooden-legged postman, still sitting on his donkey, to Mrs. Crocket's ostler, "if there be'ant the chap as was here yesterday when I was a starting, and I zeed 'un in Lezbro' street thick very morning." "He be'ant arter no good, that 'un," said the ostler. After that a close watch was kept upon the watcher. [Illustration: The wooden-legged postman of Nuncombe Putney.] In the meantime, Colonel Osborne had ordered his breakfast at the Stag and Antlers, and had asked questions as to the position of the Clock House. He was altogether ignorant of Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle had been on his track now for two days and two nights. He had determined, as he came on to Nuncombe Putney, that he would not be shame-faced about his visit to Mrs. Trevelyan. It is possible that he was not so keen in the matter as he had been when he planned his journey in London; and, it may be, that he really tried to make himself believe that he had come all the way to the confines of Dartmoor to see the porch of Cockchaffington Church. The session in London was over, and it was necessary for such a man as Colonel Osborne that he should do something with himself before he went down to the Scotch grouse. He had long desired to see something of the most picturesque county in England; and now, as he sat eating his breakfast in Mrs. Crocket's parlour, he almost looked upon his dear Emily as a subsidiary attraction. "Oh, that's the Clock House," he said to Mrs. Crocket. "No, I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Stanbury; very respectable lady, so I have heard; widow of a clergyman; ah, yes; son up in London; I know him;--always writing books is he? Very clever, I dare say. But there's a lady,--indeed two ladies,--whom I do know. Mrs. Trevelyan is there, I think,--and Miss Rowley." "You be'ant Muster Trevelyan, be you?" said Mrs. Crocket, looking at him very hard. "No, I'm not Mr. Trevelyan." "Nor yet 'the Colonel' they doo be talking about?" "Well, yes, I am a colonel. I don't know why anybody should talk about me. I'll just step out now, however, and see my friends." "It's madam's lover," said Mrs. Crocket to herself, "as sure as eggs is eggs." As she said so, Colonel Osborne boldly walked across the village and pulled the bell at the iron gate, while Bozzle, crouching among the tombs, saw the handle in his hand. "There he is," said Priscilla. Everybody in the Clock House had known that the fly, which they had seen, had brought "the Colonel" into Nuncombe Putney. Everybody had known that he had breakfasted at the Stag and Antlers. And everybody now knew that he was at the gate ringing the bell. "Into the drawing-room," said Mrs. Stanbury, with a fearful, tremulous whisper, to the girl who went across the little garden in front to open the iron gate. The girl felt as though Apollyon were there, and as though she were called upon to admit Apollyon. Mrs. Stanbury having uttered her whisper, hurried away up-stairs. Priscilla held her ground in the parlour, determined to be near the scene of action if there might be need. And it must be acknowledged that she peeped from behind the curtain, anxious to catch a glimpse of the terrible man, whose coming to Nuncombe Putney she regarded as so severe a misfortune. The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in the drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. "It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary," Mrs. Trevelyan had said, "but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent." "My dear girls," said the Colonel, "I am delighted to see you," and he gave a hand to each. "We are not very cheerful here," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "as you may imagine." "But the scenery is beautiful," said Nora, "and the people we are living with are kind and nice." "I am very glad of that," said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that none of them knew how to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that he certainly had not come to see her. "Have you heard from your father since you have been here?" asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trevelyan stated that she had explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduke, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. She was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. The expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevelyan. Nor did "the Colonel" find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. "The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley. As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla. "Is he gone?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, yes;--he has gone." "What would I have given that he had never come!" "And yet," said Nora, "what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us." "Nora!" "What do you mean?" "You don't believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentleman-like thing to do." "I am quite sure you are wrong, then,--altogether wrong," said Nora. "Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,--to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman's name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!" "I am afraid we are a great trouble to you." "I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie." Then she eat humble-pie,--after the following fashion:-- DEAR AUNT STANBURY, After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour. I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,--nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;--as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;--and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary. As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,--only that it will be talked about. I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don't mind it. Yours truly, PRISCILLA STANBURY. The Clock House, Friday, August 5. She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him. Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro'. CHAPTER XXII. SHEWING HOW MISS STANBURY BEHAVED TO HER TWO NIECES. [Illustration] The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece's letter was certainly

directed

How many times the word 'directed' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

carry

How many times the word 'carry' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

damsel

How many times the word 'damsel' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

deus

How many times the word 'deus' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

looks

How many times the word 'looks' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

knows

How many times the word 'knows' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

australia

How many times the word 'australia' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

brambles

How many times the word 'brambles' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

service

How many times the word 'service' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

rising

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unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

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unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

oxford

How many times the word 'oxford' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

dearest

How many times the word 'dearest' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

jesuit

How many times the word 'jesuit' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

difficulty

How many times the word 'difficulty' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

proof

How many times the word 'proof' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

suspect

How many times the word 'suspect' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

jes

How many times the word 'jes' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

brierly

How many times the word 'brierly' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

heart

How many times the word 'heart' appears in the text?

unfairly, most unfairly; one ought to be up to their dodges. I dare say, if the truth were known, Willis has had lessons; he looks so demure; I dare say he is keeping back a great deal, and playing upon my ignorance. Who knows? perhaps he's a concealed Jesuit." It was an awful thought, and suspended the course of his reflections some seconds. "I wonder what he does really think; it's so difficult to get at the bottom of them; they won't tell tales, and they are under obedience; one never knows when to believe them. I suspect he has been wofully disappointed with Romanism; he looks so thin; but of course he won't say so; it hurts a man's pride, and he likes to be consistent; he doesn't like to be laughed at, and so he makes the best of things. I wish I knew how to treat him; I was wrong in having Reding here; of course Willis would not be confidential before a third person. He's like the fox that lost his tail. It was bad tact in me; I see it now; what a thing it is to have tact! it requires very delicate tact. There are so many things I wished to say, about Indulgences, about their so seldom communicating; I think I must ask him about the Mass." So, after fidgeting a good deal within, while he was ostensibly employed in making tea, he commenced his last assault. "Well, we shall have you back again among us by next Christmas, Willis," he said; "I can't give you greater law; I am certain of it; it takes time, but slow and sure. What a joyful time it will be! I can't tell what keeps you; you are doing nothing; you are flung into a corner; you are wasting life. _What_ keeps you?" Willis looked odd; then he simply answered, "Grace." Bateman was startled, but recovered himself; "Heaven forbid," he said, "that I should treat these things lightly, or interfere with you unduly. I know, my dear friend, what a serious fellow you are; but do tell me, just tell me, how can you justify the Mass, as it is performed abroad; how can it be called a 'reasonable service,' when all parties conspire to gabble it over as if it mattered not a jot who attended to it, or even understood it? Speak, man, speak," he added, gently shaking him by the shoulder. "These are such difficult questions," answered Willis; "must I speak? Such difficult questions," he continued, rising into a more animated manner, and kindling as he went on; "I mean, people view them so differently: it is so difficult to convey to one person the idea of another. The idea of worship is different in the Catholic Church from the idea of it in your Church; for, in truth, the _religions_ are different. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Bateman," he said tenderly, "it is not that ours is your religion carried a little farther,--a little too far, as you would say. No, they differ in kind, not in degree; ours is one religion, yours another. And when the time comes, and come it will, for you, alien as you are now, to submit yourself to the gracious yoke of Christ, then, my dearest Bateman, it will be _faith_ which will enable you to bear the ways and usages of Catholics, which else might perhaps startle you. Else, the habits of years, the associations in your mind of a certain outward behaviour with real inward acts of devotion, might embarrass you, when you had to conform yourself to other habits, and to create for yourself other associations. But this faith, of which I speak, the great gift of God, will enable you in that day to overcome yourself, and to submit, as your judgment, your will, your reason, your affections, so your tastes and likings, to the rule and usage of the Church. Ah, that faith should be necessary in such a matter, and that what is so natural and becoming under the circumstances, should have need of an explanation! I declare, to me," he said, and he clasped his hands on his knees, and looked forward as if soliloquizing, "to me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words,--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and is the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go, the whole is quick; for they are all parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice, they are a work too great to delay upon; as when it was said in the beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass; for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as He passed along the lake in the days of His flesh, quickly calling first one and then another. Quickly they pass; because as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass; for they are as the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in the cloud, calling on the Name of the Lord as He passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' And as Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great Advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation;--not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple labourers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. And oh, my dear Bateman," he added, turning to him, "you ask me whether this is not a formal, unreasonable service--it is wonderful!" he cried, rising up, "quite wonderful. When will these dear, good people be enlightened? _O Sapientia, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia, O Adonai, O Clavis David et Exspectatio gentium, veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster._" Now, at least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known the truth." Willis's face still glowed, and he looked as youthful and radiant as he had been two years before. There was nothing ungentle in his impetuosity; a smile, almost a laugh, was on his face, as if he was half ashamed of his own warmth; but this took nothing from its evident sincerity. He seized Bateman's two hands, before the latter knew where he was, lifted him up out of his seat, and, raising his own mouth close to his ear, said, in a low voice, "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all who hear me this day, were both in little and in much such as I am, except these chains." Then, reminding him it had grown late, and bidding him good-night, he left the room with Charles. Bateman remained a while with his back to the fire after the door had closed; presently he began to give expression to his thoughts. "Well," he said, "he's a brick, a regular brick; he has almost affected me myself. What a way those fellows have with them! I declare his touch has made my heart beat; how catching enthusiasm is! Any one but I might really have been unsettled. He _is_ a real good fellow; what a pity we have not got him! he's just the sort of man we want. He'd make a splendid Anglican; he'd convert half the Dissenters in the country. Well, we shall have them in time; we must not be impatient. But the idea of his talking of converting _me_! 'in little and in much,' as he worded it! By-the-bye, what did he mean by 'except these chains'?" He sat ruminating on the difficulty; at first he was inclined to think that, after all, he might have some misgiving about his position; then he thought that perhaps he had a hair-shirt or a _catenella_ on him; and lastly, he came to the conclusion that he had just meant nothing at all, and did but finish the quotation he had begun. After passing some little time in this state, he looked towards the tea-tray; poured himself out another cup of tea; ate a bit of toast; took the coals off the fire; blew out one of the candles, and, taking up the other, left the parlour and wound like an omnibus up the steep twisting staircase to his bedroom. Meanwhile Willis and Charles were proceeding to their respective homes. For a while they had to pursue the same path, which they did in silence. Charles had been moved far more than Bateman, or rather touched, by the enthusiasm of his Catholic friend, though, from a difficulty in finding language to express himself, and a fear of being carried off his legs, he had kept his feelings to himself. When they were about to part, Willis said to him, in a subdued tone, "You are soon going to Oxford, dearest Reding; oh, that you were one with us! You have it in you. I have thought of you at Mass many times. Our priest has said Mass for you. Oh, my dear friend, quench not God's grace; listen to His call; you have had what others have not. What you want is faith. I suspect you have quite proof enough; enough to be converted on. But faith is a gift; pray for that great gift, without which you cannot come to the Church; without which," and he paused, "you cannot walk aright when you are in the Church. And now farewell! alas, our path divides; all is easy to him that believeth. May God give you that gift of faith, as He has given me! Farewell again; who knows when I may see you next, and where? may it be in the courts of the true Jerusalem, the Queen of Saints, the Holy Roman Church, the Mother of us all!" He drew Charles to him and kissed his cheek, and was gone before Charles had time to say a word. Yet Charles could not have spoken had he had ever so much opportunity. He set off at a brisk pace, cutting down with his stick the twigs and brambles which the pale twilight discovered in his path. It seemed as if the kiss of his friend had conveyed into his own soul the enthusiasm which his words had betokened. He felt himself possessed, he knew not how, by a high superhuman power, which seemed able to push through mountains, and to walk the sea. With winter around him, he felt within like the spring-tide, when all is new and bright. He perceived that he had found, what indeed he had never sought, because he had never known what it was, but what he had ever wanted,--a soul sympathetic with his own. He felt he was no longer alone in the world, though he was losing that true congenial mind the very moment he had found him. Was this, he asked himself, the communion of Saints? Alas! how could it be, when he was in one communion and Willis in another? "O mighty Mother!" burst from his lips; he quickened his pace almost to a trot, scaling the steep ascents and diving into the hollows which lay between him and Boughton. "O mighty Mother!" he still said, half unconsciously; "O mighty Mother! I come, O mighty Mother! I come; but I am far from home. Spare me a little; I come with what speed I may, but I am slow of foot, and not as others, O mighty Mother!" By the time he had walked two miles in this excitement, bodily and mental, he felt himself, as was not wonderful, considerably exhausted. He slackened his pace, and gradually came to himself, but still he went on, as if mechanically, "O mighty Mother!" Suddenly he cried, "Hallo! where did I get these words? Willis did not use them. Well, I must be on my guard against these wild ways. Any one can be an enthusiast; enthusiasm is not truth ... O mighty Mother!... Alas, I know where my heart is! but I must go by reason ... O mighty Mother!" CHAPTER XXI. The time came at length for Charles to return to Oxford; but during the last month scruples had arisen in his mind, whether, with his present feelings, he could consistently even present himself for his examination. No subscription was necessary for his entrance into the schools, but he felt that the honours of the class-list were only intended for those who were _bon fide_ adherents of the Church of England. He laid his difficulty before Carlton, who in consequence did his best to ascertain thoroughly his present state of mind. It seemed that Charles had no _intention_, either now or at any future day, of joining the Church of Rome; that he felt he could not take such a step at present without distinct sin; that it would simply be against his conscience to do so; that he had no feeling whatever that God called him to do so; that he felt that nothing could justify so serious an act but the conviction that he could not be saved in the Church to which he belonged; that he had no such feeling; that he had no definite case against his own Church sufficient for leaving it, nor any definite view that the Church of Rome was the One Church of Christ:--that still he could not help suspecting that one day he should think otherwise; he conceived the day might come, nay would come, when he should have that conviction which at present he had not, and which of course would be a call on him to act upon it, by leaving the Church of England for that of Rome; he could not tell distinctly why he so anticipated, except that there were so many things which he thought right in the Church of Rome, and so many which he thought wrong in the Church of England; and, because, too, the more he had an opportunity of hearing and seeing, the greater cause he had to admire and revere the Roman Catholic system, and to be dissatisfied with his own. Carlton, after carefully considering the case, advised him to go in for his examination. He acted thus, on the one hand, as vividly feeling the changes which take place in the minds of young men, and the difficulty of Reding foretelling his own state of opinions two years to come; and, on the other, from the reasonable anticipation that a contrary advice would have been the very way to ripen his present doubts on the untenableness of Anglicanism into conviction. Accordingly, his examination came off in due time; the schools were full, he did well, and his class was considered to be secure. Sheffield followed soon after, and did brilliantly. The list came out; Sheffield was in the first class, Charles in the second. There is always of necessity a good deal of accident in these matters; but in the present case reasons enough could be given to account for the unequal success of the two friends. Charles had lost some time by his father's death, and family matters consequent upon it; and his virtual rustication for the last six months had been a considerable disadvantage to him. Moreover, though he had been a careful, persevering reader, he certainly had not run the race for honours with the same devotion as Sheffield; nor had his religious difficulties, particularly his late indecision about presenting himself at all, been without their serious influence upon his attention and his energy. As success had not been the first desire of his soul, so failure was not his greatest misery. He would have much preferred success; but in a day or two he found he could well endure the want of it. Now came the question about his degree, which could not be taken without subscription to the Articles. Another consultation followed with Carlton. There was no need of his becoming a B.A. at the moment; nothing would be gained by it; better that he should postpone the step. He had but to go down and say nothing about it; no one would be the wiser; and if, at the end of six months, as Carlton sanguinely anticipated, he found himself in a more comfortable frame of mind, then let him come up, and set all right. What was he to do with himself at the moment? There was little difficulty here either, what to propose. He had better be reading with some clergyman in the country; thus he would at once be preparing for orders, and clearing his mind on the points which at present troubled him; besides, he might thus have some opportunity for parochial duty, which would have a tranquillizing and sobering effect on his mind. As to the books to which he should give his attention, of course the choice would rest with the clergyman who was to guide him; but for himself Carlton would not recommend the usual works in controversy with Rome, for which the Anglican Church was famous; rather those which are of a positive character, which treated subjects philosophically, historically, or doctrinally, and displayed the peculiar principles of that Church; Hooker's great work, for instance; or Bull's _Defensio_ and _Harmonia_, or Pearson's _Vindici _, or Jackson on the Creed, a noble work; to which Laud on Tradition might be added, though its form was controversial. Such, too, were Bingham's Antiquities, Waterland on the Use of Antiquity, Wall on Infant Baptism, and Palmer on the Liturgy. Nor ought he to neglect practical and devotional authors, as Bishops Taylor, Wilson, and Horne. The most important point remained; whither was he to betake himself? did he know of any clergyman in the country who would be willing to receive him as a friend and a pupil? Charles thought of Campbell, with whom he was on the best of terms; and Carlton knew enough of him by reputation, to be perfectly sure that he could not be in safer hands. Charles, in consequence, made the proposal to him, and it was accepted. Nothing then remained for him but to pay a few bills, to pack up some books which he had left in a friend's room, and then to bid adieu, at least for a time, to the cloisters and groves of the University. He quitted in June, when everything was in that youthful and fragrant beauty which he had admired so much in the beginning of his residence three years before. Part III. CHAPTER I. But now we must look forward, not back. Once before we took leave to pass over nearly two years in the life of the subject of this narrative, and now a second and a dreary and longer interval shall be consigned to oblivion, and the reader shall be set down in the autumn of the year next but one after that in which Charles took his class and did not take his degree. At this time our interest is confined to Boughton and the Rectory at Sutton. As to Melford, friend Bateman had accepted the incumbency of a church in a manufacturing town with a district of 10,000 souls, where he was full of plans for the introduction of the surplice and gilt candlesticks among his people, and where, it is to be hoped, he will learn wisdom. Willis also was gone, on a different errand: he had bid adieu to his mother and brother soon after Charles had gone into the schools, and now was Father Aloysius de Sanct Cruce in the Passionist Convent of Pennington. One evening, at the end of September, in the year aforesaid, Campbell had called at Boughton, and was walking in the garden with Miss Reding. "Really, Mary," he said to her, "I don't think it does any good to keep him. The best years of his life are going, and, humanly speaking, there is not any chance of his changing his mind, at least till he has made a trial of the Church of Rome. It is quite possible that experience may drive him back." "It is a dreadful dilemma," she answered; "how can we even indirectly give him permission to take so fatal a step?" "He is a dear, good fellow," he made reply; "he is a sterling fellow; all this long time that he has been with me he has made no difficulties; he has read thoroughly the books that I recommended and more, and done whatever I told him. You know I have employed him in the parish; he has taught the Catechism to the children, and been almoner. Poor fellow, his health is suffering now: he sees there's no end of it, and hope deferred makes the heart sick." "It is so dreadful to give any countenance to what is so very wrong," said Mary. "Why, what is to be done?" answered Campbell; "and we need not countenance it; he can't be kept in leading-strings for ever, and there has been a kind of bargain. He wanted to make a move at the end of the first year--I didn't think it worth while to fidget you about it--but I quieted him. We compounded in this way: he removed his name from the college-boards,--there was not the slightest chance of his ever signing the Articles,--and he consented to wait another year. Now the time's up, and more, and he is getting impatient. So it's not we who shall be giving him countenance, it will only be his leaving us." "But it is so fearful," insisted Mary; "and my poor mother--I declare I think it will be her death." "It will be a crushing blow, there's no doubt of that," said Campbell; "what does she know of it at present?" "I hardly can tell you," answered she; "she has been informed of it indeed distinctly a year ago; but seeing Charles so often, and he in appearance just the same, I fear she does not realize it. She has never spoken to me on the subject. I fancy she thinks it a scruple; troublesome, certainly, but of course temporary." "I must break it to her, Mary," said Campbell. "Well, I think it _must_ be done," she replied, heaving a sudden sigh; "and if so, it will be a real kindness in you to save me a task to which I am quite unequal. But have a talk with Charles first. When it comes to the point he may have a greater difficulty than he thinks beforehand." And so it was settled; and, full of care at the double commission with which he was charged, Campbell rode back to Sutton. Poor Charles was sitting at an open window, looking out upon the prospect, when Campbell entered the room. It was a beautiful landscape, with bold hills in the distance, and a rushing river beneath him. Campbell came up to him without his perceiving it; and, putting his hand on his shoulder, asked his thoughts. Charles turned round, and smiled sadly. "I am like Moses seeing the land," he said; "my dear Campbell, when shall the end be?" "That, my good Charles, of course does not rest with me," answered Campbell. "Well," said he, "the year is long run out; may I go my way?" "You can't expect that I, or any of us, should even indirectly countenance you in what, with all our love of you, we think a sin," said Campbell. "That is as much as to say, 'Act for yourself,'" answered Charles; "well, I am willing." Campbell did not at once reply; then he said, "I shall have to break it to your poor mother; Mary thinks it will be her death." Charles dropped his head on the window-sill, upon his hands. "No," he said; "I trust that she, and all of us, will be supported." "So do I, fervently," answered Campbell; "it will be a most terrible blow to your sisters. My dear fellow, should you not take all this into account? Do seriously consider the actual misery you are causing for possible good." "Do you think I have not considered it, Campbell? Is it nothing for one like me to be breaking all these dear ties, and to be losing the esteem and sympathy of so many persons I love? Oh, it has been a most piercing thought; but I have exhausted it, I have drunk it out. I have got familiar with the prospect now, and am fully reconciled. Yes, I give up home, I give up all who have ever known me, loved me, valued me, wished me well; I know well I am making myself a by-word and an outcast." "Oh, my dear Charles," answered Campbell, "beware of a very subtle temptation which may come on you here. I have meant to warn you of it before. The greatness of the sacrifice stimulates you; you do it because it is so much to do." Charles smiled. "How little you know me!" he said; "if that were the case, should I have waited patiently two years and more? Why did I not rush forward as others have done? _You_ will not deny that I have acted rationally, obediently. I have put the subject from me again and again, and it has returned." "I'll say nothing harsh or unkind of you, Charles," said Campbell; "but it's a most unfortunate delusion. I wish I could make you take in the idea that there is the chance of its _being_ a delusion." "Ah, Campbell, how can you forget so?" answered Charles; "don't you know this is the very thing which has influenced me so much all along? I said, 'Perhaps I am in a dream. Oh, that I could pinch myself and awake!' You know what stress I laid on my change of feeling upon my dear father's death; what I thought to be convictions before, vanished then like a cloud. I have said to myself, 'Perhaps these will vanish too.' But no; 'the clouds return after the rain;' they come again and again, heavier than ever. It is a conviction rooted in me; it endures against the prospect of loss of mother and sisters. Here I sit wasting my days, when I might be useful in life. Why? Because this hinders me. Lately it has increased on me tenfold. You will be shocked, but let me tell you in confidence,--lately I have been quite afraid to ride, or to bathe, or to do anything out of the way, lest something should happen, and I might be taken away with a great duty unaccomplished. No, by this time I have proved that it is a real conviction. My belief in the Church of Rome is part of myself; I cannot act against it without acting against God." "It is a most deplorable state of things certainly," said Campbell, who had begun to walk up and down the room; "that it is a delusion, I am confident; perhaps you are to find it so, just when you have taken the step. You will solemnly bind yourself to a foreign creed, and, as the words part from your mouth, the mist will roll up from before your eyes, and the truth will show itself. How dreadful!" "I have thought of that too," said Charles, "and it has influenced me a great deal. It has made me shrink back. But I now believe it to be like those hideous forms which in fairy tales beset good knights, when they would force their way into some enchanted palace. Recollect the words in Thalaba, 'The talisman is _faith_.' If I have good grounds for believing, to believe is a duty; God will take care of His own work. I shall not be deserted in my utmost need. Faith ever begins with a venture, and is rewarded with sight." "Yes, my good Charles," answered Campbell; "but the question is, whether your grounds _are_ good. What I mean is, that, _since_ they are _not_ good, they will not avail you in the trial. You will then, too late, find they are not

grace

How many times the word 'grace' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

elucidated

How many times the word 'elucidated' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

nailed

How many times the word 'nailed' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

them

How many times the word 'them' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

red

How many times the word 'red' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

rubbing

How many times the word 'rubbing' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

do

How many times the word 'do' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

sprang

How many times the word 'sprang' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

eve

How many times the word 'eve' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

lazy

How many times the word 'lazy' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

faltering

How many times the word 'faltering' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

voice

How many times the word 'voice' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

sinister

How many times the word 'sinister' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

stream

How many times the word 'stream' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

evening

How many times the word 'evening' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

bestowed

How many times the word 'bestowed' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

bickering

How many times the word 'bickering' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

fight

How many times the word 'fight' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

wouldst

How many times the word 'wouldst' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

hilarious

How many times the word 'hilarious' appears in the text?

uninitiated boys by their mysterious sound. They elected Myles as their Grand High Commander, and held secret meetings in the ancient tower, where many mysteries were soberly enacted. Of course in a day or two all the body of squires knew nearly everything concerning the Knights of the Rose, and of their secret meetings in the old tower. The lucky twenty were the objects of envy of all not so fortunate as to be included in this number, and there was a marked air of secrecy about everything they did that appealed to every romantic notion of the youngsters looking on. What was the stormy outcome of it all is now presently to be told. CHAPTER 12 Thus it was that Myles, with an eye to open war with the bachelors, gathered a following to his support. It was some little while before matters were brought to a crisis--a week or ten days. Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight. One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench--always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. The other two, who had just been relieved from household duty, lay at length idly looking on. Just then one of the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. Myles looked up. "Come hither, Robin," he called from where he sat. "What is to do?" The little fellow came slowly up to where the three rested in the shade. "Mowbray beat me with a strap," said he, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes, and catching his breath at the recollection. "Beat thee, didst say?" said Myles, drawing his brows together. "Why did he beat thee?" "Because," said Robin, "I tarried overlong in fetching a pot of beer from the buttery for him and Wyatt." Then, with a boy's sudden and easy quickness in forgetting past troubles, "Tell me, Falworth," said he, "when wilt thou give me that knife thou promised me--the one thou break the blade of yesterday?" "I know not," said Myles, bluntly, vexed that the boy did not take the disgrace of his beating more to heart. "Some time soon, mayhap. Me thinks thou shouldst think more of thy beating than of a broken knife. Now get thee gone to thy business." The youngster lingered for a moment or two watching Myles at his work. "What is that on the leather scrap, Falworth?" said he, curiously. "Lard and ashes," said Myles, testily. "Get thee gone, I say, or I will crack thy head for thee;" and he picked up a block of wood, with a threatening gesture. The youngster made a hideous grimace, and then scurried away, ducking his head, lest in spite of Myles's well-known good-nature the block should come whizzing after him. "Hear ye that now!" cried Myles, flinging down the block again and turning to his two friends. "Beaten with straps because, forsooth, he would not fetch and carry quickly enough to please the haste of these bachelors. Oh, this passeth patience, and I for one will bear it no longer." "Nay, Myles," said Gascoyne, soothingly, "the little imp is as lazy as a dormouse and as mischievous as a monkey. I'll warrant the hiding was his due, and that more of the like would do him good." "Why, how dost thou talk, Francis!" said Myles, turning upon him indignantly. "Thou knowest that thou likest to see the boy beaten no more than I." Then, after a meditative pause, "How many, think ye, we muster of our company of the Rose today?" Wilkes looked doubtfully at Gascoyne. "There be only seventeen of us here now," said he at last. "Brinton and Lambourne are away to Roby Castle in Lord George's train, and will not be back till Saturday next. And Watt Newton is in the infirmary. "Seventeen be'st enou," said Myles, grimly. "Let us get together this afternoon, such as may, in the Brutus Tower, for I, as I did say, will no longer suffer these vile bachelors." Gascoyne and Wilkes exchanged looks, and then the former blew a long whistle. So that afternoon a gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry--fifteen of the Knights of the Rose--and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly on his enthusiasm, and it vexed him. "What wouldst thou do, Falworth?" said one of the knights, at last. "Wouldst have us open a quarrel with the bachelors?" "Nay," said Myles, gruffly. "I had thought that ye would all lend me a hand in a pitched battle but now I see that ye ha' no stomach for that. Ne'theless, I tell ye plainly I will not submit longer to the bachelors. So now I will ask ye not to take any venture upon yourselves, but only this: that ye will stand by me when I do my fighting, and not let five or seven of them fall upon me at once. "There is Walter Blunt; he is parlous strong," said one of the others, after a time of silence. "Methinks he could conquer any two of us." "Nay," said Myles; "ye do fear him too greatly. I tell ye I fear not to stand up to try battle with him and will do so, too, if the need arise. Only say ye that ye will stand by my back." "Marry," said Gascoyne, quaintly, "an thou wilt dare take the heavy end upon thee, I for one am willing to stand by and see that thou have thy fill of fighting." "I too will stand thee by, Myles," said Edmund Wilkes. "And I, and I, and I," said others, chiming in. Those who would still have held back were carried along by the stream, and so it was settled that if the need should arise for Myles to do a bit of fighting, the others should stand by to see that he had fair play. "When thinkest thou that thou wilt take thy stand against them, Myles?" asked Wilkes. Myles hesitated a moment. "To-morrow," said he, grimly. Several of the lads whistled softly. Gascoyne was prepared for an early opening of the war, but perhaps not for such an early opening as this. "By 'r Lady, Myles, thou art hungry for brawling," said he. CHAPTER 13 After the first excitement of meeting, discussing, and deciding had passed, Myles began to feel the weight of the load he had so boldly taken upon himself. He began to reckon what a serious thing it was for him to stand as a single champion against the tyranny that had grown so strong through years of custom. Had he let himself do so, he might almost have repented, but it was too late now for repentance. He had laid his hand to the plough, and he must drive the furrow. Somehow the news of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, and no doubt it had its effect upon more than one young heart that secretly thrilled at the sight of the shining blades. However, all was undisturbed that evening. The lights were put out, and the lads retired with more than usual quietness, only for the murmur of whispering. All night Myles's sleep was more or less disturbed by dreams in which he was now conquering, now being conquered, and before the day had fairly broken he was awake. He lay upon his cot, keying himself up for the encounter which he had set upon himself to face, and it would not be the truth to say that the sight of those knives hidden in the straw the night before had made no impression upon him. By-and-by he knew the others were beginning to awake, for he heard them softly stirring, and as the light grew broad and strong, saw them arise, one by one, and begin dressing in the gray morning. Then he himself arose and put on his doublet and hose, strapping his belt tightly about his waist; then he sat down on the side of his cot. Presently that happened for which he was waiting; two of the younger squires started to bring the bachelors' morning supply of water. As they crossed the room Myles called to them in a loud voice--a little uneven, perhaps: "Stop! We draw no more water for any one in this house, saving only for ourselves. Set ye down those buckets, and go back to your places!" The two lads stopped, half turned, and then stood still, holding the three buckets undecidedly. In a moment all was uproar and confusion, for by this time every one of the lads had arisen, some sitting on the edge of their beds, some nearly, others quite dressed. A half-dozen of the Knights of the Rose came over to where Myles stood, gathering in a body behind him and the others followed, one after another. The bachelors were hardly prepared for such prompt and vigorous action. "What is to do?" cried one of them, who stood near the two lads with the buckets. "Why fetch ye not the water?" "Falworth says we shall not fetch it," answered one of the lads, a boy by the name of Gosse. "What mean ye by that, Falworth?" the young man called to Myles. Myles's heart was beating thickly and heavily within him, but nevertheless he spoke up boldly enough. "I mean," said he, "that from henceforth ye shall fetch and carry for yourselves." "Look'ee, Blunt," called the bachelor; "here is Falworth says they squires will fetch no more water for us." The head bachelor had heard all that had passed, and was even then hastily slipping on his doublet and hose. "Now, then, Falworth," said he at last, striding forward, "what is to do? Ye will fetch no more water, eh? By 'r Lady, I will know the reason why." He was still advancing towards Myles, with two or three of the older bachelors at his heels, when Gascoyne spoke. "Thou hadst best stand back, Blunt," said he, "else thou mayst be hurt. We will not have ye bang Falworth again as ye once did, so stand thou back!" Blunt stopped short and looked upon the lads standing behind Myles, some of them with faces a trifle pale perhaps, but all grim and determined looking enough. Then he turned upon his heel suddenly, and walked back to the far end of the dormitory, where the bachelors were presently clustered together. A few words passed between them, and then the thirteen began at once arming themselves, some with wooden clogs, and some with the knives which they had so openly concealed the night before. At the sign of imminent battle, all those not actively interested scuttled away to right and left, climbing up on the benches and cots, and leaving a free field to the combatants. The next moment would have brought bloodshed. Now Myles, thanks to the training of the Crosbey-Dale smith, felt tolerably sure that in a wrestling bout he was a match--perhaps more than a match--for any one of the body of squires, and he had determined, if possible, to bring the battle to a single-handed encounter upon that footing. Accordingly he suddenly stepped forward before the others. "Look'ee, fellow," he called to Blunt, "thou art he who struck me whilst I was down some while since. Wilt thou let this quarrel stand between thee and me, and meet me man to man without weapon? See, I throw me down mine own, and will meet thee with bare hands." And as he spoke, he tossed the clog he held in his hand back upon the cot. "So be it," said Blunt, with great readiness, tossing down a similar weapon which he himself held. "Do not go, Myles," cried Gascoyne, "he is a villain and a traitor, and would betray thee to thy death. I saw him when he first gat from bed hide a knife in his doublet." "Thou liest!" said Blunt. "I swear, by my faith, I be barehanded as ye see me! Thy friend accuses me, Myles Falworth, because he knoweth thou art afraid of me." "There thou liest most vilely!" exclaimed Myles. "Swear that thou hast no knife, and I will meet thee." "Hast thou not heard me say that I have no knife?" said Blunt. "What more wouldst thou have?" "Then I will meet thee halfway," said Myles. Gascoyne caught him by the sleeve, and would have withheld him, assuring him that he had seen the bachelor conceal a knife. But Myles, hot for the fight, broke away from his friend without listening to him. As the two advanced steadily towards one another a breathless silence fell upon the dormitory in sharp contrast to the uproar and confusion that had filled it a moment before. The lads, standing some upon benches, some upon beds, all watched with breathless interest the meeting of the two champions. As they approached one another they stopped and stood for a moment a little apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter than himself. The pause was only for a moment. They who looked saw Blunt slide his hand furtively towards his bosom. Myles saw too, and in the flash of an instant knew what the gesture meant, and sprang upon the other before the hand could grasp what it sought. As he clutched his enemy he felt what he had in that instant expected to feel--the handle of a dagger. The next moment he cried, in a loud voice: "Oh, thou villain! Help, Gascoyne! He hath a knife under his doublet!" In answer to his cry for help, Myles's friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, "Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too." And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them. For just a few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife. "Thou shalt not draw it!" gasped Myles at last. "Thou shalt not stab me!" Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over. Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost. In an instant--so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened--his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles's loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs. The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles's friends from the other. "Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth," said one of the older lads. "Belike thou hast slain him!" Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Who touches me?" cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, "Oh, Francis, they would ha' killed me!" "Come away, Myles," said Gascoyne; "thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?" The words called Myles somewhat to himself. "I care not!" said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away. Meantime Blunt's friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death. "Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!" said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt's friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles. "Aye," said Myles, gruffly, "I do thank Heaven for that." CHAPTER 14 If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, "I have won the victory." For a day--for two days--the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted. The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it. "Ho! ho!" roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, "smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?" The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over. Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building. "Holloa, Falworth!" they cried. "Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?" "Nay," said Myles, "I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it." "Thou wilt sing a different song anon," said one of the bachelors. "I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly." "Aye, marry!" said another. "I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state." "Myles," said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, "I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil." "I know not," said Myles, boldly; "but I fear him not." Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill. One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another. "Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!" called one of them along the length of the room. "Blunt cometh again to-morrow day." Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy's words or his friend's look. As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him. It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service. Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words. "Sirrah!" said he, "thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life." When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. "So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me." "Dost thou not?" said Blunt. "By'r Lady, thou'lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee." He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away. "What thinkest thou, Myles?" said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together. "I think naught," said Myles gruffly. "He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not." Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart. "I know not, Myles," said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. "Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth." "I fear him not," said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble. The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that. "See ye not," said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower--"see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop." "Best let it be, Myles," said Wilkes. "They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already." "No matter for that," said Myles; "it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be." He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: "Silence! List to me a little!" And then, in the hush that followed--"I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha' some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha' service of us no more." Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering. The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer's smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: "Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears." And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling. "There!" said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. "Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon--an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee," and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger. It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices--among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it. Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was--Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled--to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears--a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching. "He would not dare to do such a thing!" cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes. "Aye, but he would," said Gascoyne. "His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?" "In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory," answered the boy. "Are they there now?" said Wilkes. "Aye, nine of them," said Robin. "I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal." "That will do, Robin," said Myles. "Thou mayst go." And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner. The others looked at one another for a while in silence. "So, comrades," said Myles

shade

How many times the word 'shade' appears in the text?