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AIRI-NLP

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to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

monies

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

smooth

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

tunic

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

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to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

saam

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

proves

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

place

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

tingle

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

bringing

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

twenty

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

acknowledgment

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

ask

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

one

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

pressed

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

behind

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

away

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

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to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

affection

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

to be more explicit in requesting his absence. Your lordship has not yet had time, said the citizen, still attempting to sustain the conversation, to visit the places of amusement,--the playhouses, and other places to which youth resort. But I see in your lordship's hand one of the new-invented plots of the piece, [Footnote: Meaning, probably, playbills.] which they hand about of late--May I ask what play? Oh! a well-known piece, said Lord Nigel, impatiently throwing down the Proclamation, which he had hitherto been twisting to and fro in his hand,-- an excellent and well-approved piece--_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Master Heriot stooped down, saying, Ah! my old acquaintance, Philip Massinger; but, having opened the paper and seen the purport, he looked at Lord Nigel with surprise, saying, I trust your lordship does not think this prohibition can extend either to _your_ person or your claims? I should scarce have thought so myself, said the young nobleman; but so it proves. His Majesty, to close this discourse at once, has been pleased to send me this Proclamation, in answer to a respectful Supplication for the repayment of large loans advanced by my father for the service of the State, in the king's utmost emergencies. It is impossible! said the citizen-- it is absolutely impossible!--If the king could forget what was due to your father's memory, still he would not have wished--would not, I may say, have dared--to be so flagrantly unjust to the memory of such a man as your father, who, dead in the body, will long live in the memory of the Scottish people. I should have been of your opinion, answered Lord Nigel, in the same tone as before; but there is no fighting with facts. What was the tenor of this Supplication? said Heriot; or by whom was it presented? Something strange there must have been in the contents, or else-- You may see my original draught, said the young lord, taking it out of a small travelling strong-box; the technical part is by my lawyer in Scotland, a skilful and sensible man; the rest is my own, drawn, I hope, with due deference and modesty. Master Heriot hastly cast his eye over the draught. Nothing, he said, can be more well-tempered and respectful. Is it possible the king can have treated this petition with contempt? He threw it down on the pavement, said the Lord of Glenvarloch, and sent me for answer that Proclamation, in which he classes me with the paupers and mendicants from Scotland, who disgrace his Court in the eyes of the proud English--that is all. Had not my father stood by him with heart, sword, and fortune, he might never have seen the Court of England himself. But by whom was this Supplication presented, my lord? said Heriot; for the distaste taken at the messenger will sometimes extend itself to the message. By my servant, said the Lord Nigel; by the man you saw, and, I think, were kind to. By your servant, my lord? said the citizen; he seems a shrewd fellow, and doubtless a faithful; but surely-- You would say, said Lord Nigel, he is no fit messenger to a king's presence?--Surely he is not; but what could I do? Every attempt I had made to lay my case before the king had miscarried, and my petitions got no farther than the budgets of clerks and secretaries; this fellow pretended he had a friend in the household that would bring him to the king's presence,--and so-- I understand, said Heriot; but, my lord, why should you not, in right of your rank and birth, have appeared at Court, and required an audience, which could not have been denied to you? The young lord blushed a little, and looked at his dress, which was very plain; and, though in perfect good order, had the appearance of having seen service. I know not why I should be ashamed of speaking the truth, he said, after a momentary hesitation,-- I had no dress suitable for appearing at Court. I am determined to incur no expenses which I cannot discharge; and I think you, sir, would not advise me to stand at the palace-door, in person, and deliver my petition, along with those who are in very deed pleading their necessity, and begging an alms. That had been, indeed, unseemly, said the citizen; but yet, my lord, my mind runs strangely that there must be some mistake.--Can I speak with your domestic? I see little good it can do, answered the young lord, but the interest you take in my misfortunes seems sincere, and therefore---- He stamped on the floor, and in a few seconds afterwards Moniplies appeared, wiping from his beard and mustaches the crumbs of bread, and the froth of the ale-pot, which plainly showed how he had been employed.-- Will your lordship grant permission, said Heriot, that I ask your groom a few questions? His lordship's page, Master George, answered Moniplies, with a nod of acknowledgment, if you are minded to speak according to the letter. Hold your saucy tongue, said his master, and reply distinctly to the questions you are to be asked. And _truly,_ if it like your pageship, said the citizen, for you may remember I have a gift to discover falset. Weel, weel, weel, replied the domestic, somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his effrontery-- though I think that the sort of truth that serves my master, may weel serve ony ane else. Pages lie to their masters by right of custom, said the citizen; and you write yourself in that band, though I think you be among the oldest of such springalds; but to me you must speak truth, if you would not have it end in the whipping-post. And that's e'en a bad resting-place, said the well-grown page; so come away with your questions, Master George. Well, then, demanded the citizen, I am given to understand that you yesterday presented to his Majesty's hand a Supplication, or petition, from this honourable lord, your master. Troth, there's nae gainsaying that, sir, replied Moniplies; there were enow to see it besides me. And you pretend that his Majesty flung it from him with contempt? said the citizen. Take heed, for I have means of knowing the truth; and you were better up to the neck in the Nor-Loch, which you like so well, than tell a leasing where his Majesty's name is concerned. There is nae occasion for leasing-making about the matter, answered Moniplies, firmly; his Majesty e'en flung it frae him as if it had dirtied his fingers. You hear, sir, said Olifaunt, addressing Heriot. Hush! said the sagacious citizen; this fellow is not ill named--he has more plies than one in his cloak. Stay, fellow, for Moniplies, muttering somewhat about finishing his breakfast, was beginning to shamble towards the door, answer me this farther question--When you gave your master's petition to his Majesty, gave you nothing with it? Ou, what should I give wi' it, ye ken, Master George? That is what I desire and insist to know, replied his interrogator. Weel, then--I am not free to say, that maybe I might not just slip into the king's hand a wee bit Sifflication of mine ain, along with my lord's--just to save his Majesty trouble--and that he might consider them baith at ance. A supplication of your own, you varlet! said his master. Ou dear, ay, my lord, said Richie-- puir bodies hae their bits of sifflications as weel as their betters. And pray, what might your worshipful petition import? said Master Heriot.-- Nay, for Heaven's sake, my lord, keep your patience, or we shall never learn the truth of this strange matter.--Speak out, sirrah, and I will stand your friend with my lord. It's a lang story to tell--but the upshot is, that it's a scrape of an auld accompt due to my father's yestate by her Majesty the king's maist gracious mother, when she lived in the Castle, and had sundry providings and furnishings forth of our booth, whilk nae doubt was an honour to my father to supply, and whilk, doubtless, it will be a credit to his Majesty to satisfy, as it will be grit convenience to me to receive the saam. What string of impertinence is this? said his master. Every word as true as e'er John Knox spoke, said Richie; here's the bit double of the Sifflication. Master George took a crumpled paper from the fellow's hand, and said, muttering betwixt his teeth-- 'Humbly showeth--um--um--his Majesty's maist gracious mother--um--um--justly addebted and owing the sum of fifteen merks--the compt whereof followeth--Twelve nowte's feet for jellies--ane lamb, being Christmas--ane roasted capin in grease for the privy chalmer, when my Lord of Bothwell suppit with her Grace.'--I think, my lord, you can hardly be surprised that the king gave this petition a brisk reception; and I conclude, Master Page, that you took care to present your own Supplication before your master's? Troth did I not, answered Moniplies. I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk-- And shall have all the beating, you rascal knave, said Nigel; am I to be insulted and dishonoured by your pragmatical insolence, in blending your base concerns with mine? Nay, nay, nay, my lord, said the good-humoured citizen, interposing, I have been the means of bringing the fellow's blunder to light--allow me interest enough with your lordship to be bail for his bones. You have cause to be angry, but still I think the knave mistook more out of conceit than of purpose; and I judge you will have the better service of him another time, if you overlook this fault--Get you gone, sirrah--I'll make your peace. Na, na, said Moniplies, keeping his ground firmly, if he likes to strike a lad that has followed him for pure love, for I think there has been little servant's fee between us, a' the way frae Scotland, just let my lord be doing, and see the credit he will get by it--and I would rather (mony thanks to you though, Master George) stand by a lick of his baton, than it suld e'er be said a stranger came between us. Go, then, said his master, and get out of my sight. Aweel I wot that is sune done, said Moniplies, retiring slowly; I did not come without I had been ca'd for--and I wad have been away half an hour since with my gude will, only Maister George keepit me to answer his interrogation, forsooth, and that has made a' this stir. And so he made his grumbling exit, with the tone much rather of one who has sustained an injury, than who has done wrong. There never was a man so plagued as I am with a malapert knave!--The fellow is shrewd, and I have found him faithful--I believe he loves me, too, and he has given proofs of it--but then he is so uplifted in his own conceit, so self-willed, and so self-opinioned, that he seems to become the master and I the man; and whatever blunder he commits, he is sure to make as loud complaints, as if the whole error lay with me, and in no degree with himself. Cherish him, and maintain him, nevertheless, said the citizen; for believe my grey hairs, that affection and fidelity are now rarer qualities in a servitor, than when the world was younger. Yet, trust him, my good lord, with no commission above his birth or breeding, for you see yourself how it may chance to fall. It is but too evident, Master Heriot, said the young nobleman; and I am sorry I have done injustice to my sovereign, and your master. But I am, like a true Scotsman, wise behind hand--the mistake has happened--my Supplication has been refused, and my only resource is to employ the rest of my means to carry Moniplies and myself to some counter-scarp, and die in the battle-front like my ancestors. It were better to live and serve your country like your noble father, my lord, replied Master George. Nay, nay, never look down or shake your head--the king has not refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it--you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects--ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty. I were well pleased to think so, and yet---- said Nigel Olifaunt,-- I speak not of my own wrongs, but my country hath many that are unredressed. My lord, said Master Heriot, I speak of my royal master, not only with the respect due from a subject--the gratitude to be paid by a favoured servant, but also with the frankness of a free and loyal Scotsman. The king is himself well disposed to hold the scales of justice even; but there are those around him who can throw without detection their own selfish wishes and base interests into the scale. You are already a sufferer by this, and without your knowing it. I am surprised, Master Heriot, said the young lord, to hear you, upon so short an acquaintance, talk as if you were familiarly acquainted with my affairs. My lord, replied the goldsmith, the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, even against my will, what wheels are in motion, and how they are checked or forwarded. Of course, when I choose to seek such intelligence, I know the sources in which it is to be traced. I have told you why I was interested in your lordship's fortunes. It was last night only that I knew you were in this city, yet I have been able, in coming hither this morning, to gain for you some information respecting the impediments to your suit. Sir, I am obliged by your zeal, however little it may be merited, answered Nigel, still with some reserve; yet I hardly know how I have deserved this interest. First let me satisfy you that it is real, said the citizen; I blame you not for being unwilling to credit the fair professions of a stranger in my inferior class of society, when you have met so little friendship from relations, and those of your own rank, bound to have assisted you by so many ties. But mark the cause. There is a mortgage over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks, due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere. I know nothing of a mortgage, said the young lord; but there is a wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor. A wadset in Scotland, said Heriot, is the same with a mortgage on this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device. Can this be possible? said Lord Nigel; the Chancellor wept when I took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance, excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the expenses of his rank and his large family. No, I cannot believe a nobleman would carry deceit so far. I am not, it is true, of noble blood, said the citizen; but once more I bid you look on my grey hairs, and think what can be my interest in dishonouring them with falsehood in affairs in which I have no interest, save as they regard the son of my benefactor. Reflect also, have you had any advantage from the Lord Chancellor's letters? None, said Nigel Olifaunt, except cold deeds and fair words. I have thought for some time, their only object was to get rid of me--one yesterday pressed money on me when I talked of going abroad, in order that I might not want the means of exiling myself. Right, said Heriot; rather than you fled not, they would themselves furnish wings for you to fly withal. I will to him this instant, said the incensed youth, and tell him my mind of his baseness. Under your favour, said Heriot, detaining him, you shall not do so. By a quarrel you would become the ruin of me your informer; and though I would venture half my shop to do your lordship a service, I think you would hardly wish me to come by damage, when it can be of no service to you. The word _shop_ sounded harshly in the ear of the young nobleman, who replied hastily-- Damage, sir?--so far am I from wishing you to incur damage, that I would to Heaven you would cease your fruitless offers of serving one whom there is no chance of ultimately assisting! Leave me alone for that, said the citizen: you have now erred as far on the bow-hand. Permit me to take this Supplication--I will have it suitably engrossed, and take my own time (and it shall be an early one) for placing it, with more prudence, I trust, than that used by your follower, in the king's hand--I will almost answer for his taking up the matter as you would have him--but should he fail to do so, even then I will not give up the good cause. Sir, said the young nobleman, your speech is so friendly, and my own state so helpless, that I know not how to refuse your kind proffer, even while I blush to accept it at the hands of a stranger. We are, I trust, no longer such, said the goldsmith; and for my guerdon, when my mediation proves successful, and your fortunes are re-established, you shall order your first cupboard of plate from George Heriot. You would have a bad paymaster, Master Heriot, said Lord Nigel. I do not fear that, replied the goldsmith; and I am glad to see you smile, my lord--methinks it makes you look still more like the good old lord your father; and it emboldens me, besides, to bring out a small request--that you would take a homely dinner with me to-morrow. I lodge hard by in Lombard Street. For the cheer, my lord, a mess of white broth, a fat capon well larded, a dish of beef collops for auld Scotland's sake, and it may be a cup of right old wine, that was barrelled before Scotland and England were one nation--Then for company, one or two of our own loving countrymen--and maybe my housewife may find out a bonny Scots lass or so. I would accept your courtesy, Master Heriot, said Nigel, but I hear the city ladies of London like to see a man gallant--I would not like to let down a Scottish nobleman in their ideas, as doubtless you have said the best of our poor country, and I rather lack the means of bravery for the present. My lord, your frankness leads me a step farther, said Master George. I--I owed your father some monies; and--nay, if your lordship looks at me so fixedly, I shall never tell my story--and, to speak plainly, for I never could carry a lie well through in my life--it is most fitting, that, to solicit this matter properly, your lordship should go to Court in a manner beseeming your quality. I am a goldsmith, and live by lending money as well as by selling plate. I am ambitious to put an hundred pounds to be at interest in your hands, till your affairs are settled. And if they are never favourably settled? said Nigel. Then, my lord, returned the citizen, the miscarriage of such a sum will be of little consequence to me, compared with other subjects of regret. Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel, your favour is generously offered, and shall be frankly accepted. I must presume that you see your way through this business, though I hardly do; for I think you would be grieved to add any fresh burden to me, by persuading me to incur debts which I am not likely to discharge. I will therefore take your money, under the hope and trust that you will enable me to repay you punctually. I will convince you, my lord, said the goldsmith, that I mean to deal with you as a creditor from whom I expect payment; and therefore, you shall, with your own good pleasure, sign an acknowledgment for these monies, and an obligation to content and repay me. He then took from his girdle his writing materials, and, writing a few lines to the purport he expressed, pulled out a small bag of gold from a side-pouch under his cloak, and, observing that it should contain an hundred pounds, proceeded to tell out the contents very methodically upon the table. Nigel Olifaunt could not help intimating that this was an unnecessary ceremonial, and that he would take the bag of gold on the word of his obliging creditor; but this was repugnant to the old man's forms of transacting business. Bear with me, he said, my good lord,--we citizens are a wary and thrifty generation; and I should lose my good name for ever within the toll of Paul's, were I to grant quittance, or take acknowledgment, without bringing the money to actual tale. I think it be right now--and, body of me, he said, looking out at the window, yonder come my boys with my mule; for I must Westward Hoe. Put your monies aside, my lord; it is not well to be seen with such goldfinches chirping about one in the lodgings of London. I think the lock of your casket be indifferent good; if not, I can serve you at an easy rate with one that has held thousands;--it was the good old Sir Faithful Frugal's;--his spendthrift son sold the shell when he had eaten the kernel--and there is the end of a city-fortune. I hope yours will make a better termination, Master Heriot, said the Lord Nigel. I hope it will, my lord, said the old man, with a smile; but, to use honest John Bunyan's phrase--'therewithal the water stood in his eyes,' it has pleased God to try me with the loss of two children; and for one adopted shild who lives--Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day!--But I am patient and thankful; and for the wealth God has sent me, it shall not want inheritors while there are orphan lads in Auld Reekie.--I wish you good-morrow, my lord. One orphan has cause to thank you already, said Nigel, as he attended him to the door of his chamber, where, resisting further escort, the old citizen made his escape. As, in going downstairs, he passed the shop where Dame Christie stood becking, he made civil inquiries after her husband. The dame of course regretted his absence; but he was down, she said, at Deptford, to settle with a Dutch ship-master. Our way of business, sir, she said, takes him much from home, and my husband must be the slave of every tarry jacket that wants but a pound of oakum. All business must be minded, dame, said the goldsmith. Make my remembrances--George Heriot, of Lombard Street's remembrances--to your goodman. I have dealt with him--he is just and punctual--true to time and engagements;--be kind to your noble guest, and see he wants nothing. Though it be his pleasure at present to lie private and retired, there be those that care for him, and I have a charge to see him supplied; so that you may let me know by your husband, my good dame, how my lord is, and whether he wants aught. And so he _is_ a real lord after all? said the good dame. I am sure I always thought he looked like one. But why does he not go to Parliament, then? He will, dame, answered Heriot, to the Parliament of Scotland, which is his own country. Oh! he is but a Scots lord, then, said the good dame; and that's the thing makes him ashamed to take the title, as they say. Let him not hear _you_ say so, dame, replied the citizen. Who, I, sir? answered she; no such matter in my thought, sir. Scot or English, he is at any rate a likely man, and a civil man; and rather than he should want any thing, I would wait upon him myself, and come as far as Lombard Street to wait upon your worship too. Let your husband come to me, good dame, said the goldsmith, who, with all his experience and worth, was somewhat of a formalist and disciplinarian. The proverb says, 'House goes mad when women gad;' and let his lordship's own man wait upon his master in his chamber--it is more seemly. God give ye good-morrow. Good-morrow to your worship, said the dame, somewhat coldly; and, so soon as the adviser was out of hearing, was ungracious enough to mutter, in contempt of his council, Marry quep of your advice, for an old Scotch tinsmith, as you are! My husband is as wise, and very near as old, as yourself; and if I please him, it is well enough; and though he is not just so rich just now as some folks, yet I hope to see him ride upon his moyle, with a foot-cloth, and have his two blue-coats after him, as well as they do. CHAPTER V Wherefore come ye not to court? Certain 'tis the rarest sport; There are silks and jewels glistening, Prattling fools and wise men listening, Bullies among brave men justling, Beggars amongst nobles bustling; Low-breath'd talkers, minion lispers, Cutting honest throats by whispers; Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. _Skelton Skeltonizeth._ It was not entirely out of parade that the benevolent citizen was mounted and attended in that manner, which, as the reader has been informed, excited a gentle degree of spleen on the part of Dame Christie, which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and crowded streets; and while one of his attendants carried under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, who, being understood to travel with a charge, as it was called, might otherwise have been selected as safe subjects of plunder by the street-robber. As Master George Heriot paced forth westward with this gallant attendance, he paused at the shop door of his countryman and friend, the ancient horologer, and having caused Tunstall, who was in attendance, to adjust his watch by the real time, he desired to speak with his master; in consequence of which summons, the old Time-meter came forth from his den, his face like a bronze bust, darkened with dust, and glistening here and there with copper filings, and his senses so bemused in the intensity of calculation, that he gazed on his friend the goldsmith for a minute before he seemed perfectly to comprehend who he was, and heard him express his invitation to David Ramsay, and pretty Mistress Margaret, his daughter, to dine with him next day at noon, to meet with a noble young countrymen, without returning any answer. I'll make thee speak, with a murrain to thee, muttered Heriot to himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,-- I pray you, neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the bullion

done

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

apostles

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

plaideurs

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

went

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

whither

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

arms

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

smaller

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

nothing

How many times the word 'nothing' appears in the text?

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

strange

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

history

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

uniform

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to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

paganism

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

extend

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

could

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

difficult

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

yell

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

consider

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

opened

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

exertion

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

to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received paganism. But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins, and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would increase both the scandal and the confusion. A long repose, says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, had corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares. Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations, relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church; took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their gains by accumulated usuries. (1) The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places. There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo, Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant; congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death. Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old _mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all, or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the Christian name we now proceed to explain. They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols, large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast, for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their country s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule, struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his intercourse with her after his father s death, and at length went so far as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this hopeful lad were his own. Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy s nature is variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His father s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors, and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the qu stor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business. Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves many forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times, when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned. CHAPTER III. AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE. The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him, was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and, unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple, the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris. Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling. And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon the wall the word, Advocata, a title which the earliest antiquity bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and St. Paul s Epistle to the Romans, in the old Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with gold. The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the _asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons, which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams, with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge. Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind called _duracin _; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or _psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects. Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult; minds like his own, who would understand him minds unlike his own, who would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been, though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation, argument, aspiration, and affection? No one cares for me, he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, Art Thou He that shall come? Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of its members? He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said, suddenly, Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father s farm? I am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many? But here he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang, half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at all. Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love, or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall not prevail against thee! What means that smile upon Agellius s face? It is the response of the child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation; and he begins his evening prayer. CHAPTER IV. JUBA. There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh. He, he, he! he cried; so you are on your knees, Agellius. Why shouldn t I be at this hour, answered Agellius, and before I go to bed? O, every one to his taste, of course, said Juba; but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act. Why, Juba? said his brother somewhat sharply; don t you profess any religion at all? Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don t, answered Juba; but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that. What ails you to come here at this time of night? asked Agellius; who asked for your company? I will come just when I please, said the other, and go when I please. I won t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me? Then, said Agellius, you ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come. Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. I want no more than I have; I am well content, he said. Contented with yourself, retorted Agellius. Of course, Juba replied; whom ought one to wish rather to content? I suppose, your Creator. Creator, answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; Creator; that, I consider, is an assumption. O, my dear brother, cried Agellius, don t go on in that dreadful way! Go on! who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you? Well, if I did, answered Agellius; but I didn t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour? There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother s question, he quietly said, I have been down there, pointing in the direction of the woods. An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, You don t mean to say you have been down to poor mother? I do, said Juba. There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years. Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs. At one time I thought you would have been baptized, his brother continued. That was my weakness, answered Juba; it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me. Oh that you had yielded to your wish! cried Agellius. Juba looked superior. The fit passed, he said. I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion; and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many. Well, said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, what brings you here so late? I was on my way to Jucundus, he answered, and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river. Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. My poor fellow, he said, what were you there for? To see the world, answered Juba; it s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm. No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog? You don t take just views of human nature, answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog, and he laughed. This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please. Happiness! cried Agellius; where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness? What do you know about such matters? asked Juba. Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten. Now, as I live, you shan t stop here one instant longer! cried out Agellius, starting up. Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others. I am as good as you any day, said Juba. I don t set myself up, answered Agellius, but it s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do. Christian and unbeliever! said Juba, slowly. I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded. He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, If I _were_ a Christian, I d be so in earnest: else I d be an honest heathen. Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment. I despise you, said Juba; you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you re not made of that stuff. You re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you, he continued, I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What s the difference between you and another? Your people say, Earth s a vanity, life s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short; but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit. It is one thing to have a conscience, answered Agellius; another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once. Conscience, conscience, said Juba. Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none. Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor. The truth is, continued Juba, with the air of a teacher the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon, he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It s among the things that were. Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don t believe a bit more about religion than I do. You must not say that under my roof, cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother s charge pass without a protest. Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of

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to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

well

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

amorous

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

formality

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

eyes

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

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to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

consumes

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

defenceless

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

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to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

strain

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

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to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

often

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

bear

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

invite

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

purpose

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

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to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

affairs

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

to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her

love

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

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to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

desk

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

day

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

lights

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

overcoat

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

absolutely

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

closes

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

suppose

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

beehive

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

taxi

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

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to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

funny

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

soap

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

people

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

gesture

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

chart

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

premier

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

to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

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to go to bed at all! BETSY Uncle Bill, you're going to miss your train! MURIEL Jim, you clean up this mess. I'll drive Bill to the station and pick up some cold cuts for dinner. Betsy and Joan pick up some boxes and walk into the dining room. BETSY You'd better hurry! BILL (indicating upstairs closet) Kind of hate to leave that little place. Just four walls and a couple of mothballs, but to me it'll always be home. JIM (preoccupied with timetable) So long, Bill. Bill and Muriel exit. INT. THE DINING ROOM As Jim drifts in, still preoccupied with timetable: JOAN It's certainly going to be fun this summer when Uncle Bill comes up for his vacation. BETSY We'll get in a lot of doubles. JIM Hmm? (looks up from timetable) What are you talking about? Bill's going to Europe. BETSY No, he's not. I heard him and mother talking. He's going to move his vacation up and take a place in Lansdale. JIM (vaguely annoyed) Uh-huh... Mm-hm. Mm-hm... Uh-huh. (then, covering up) All right, come on, come on. Get busy. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' CAR - (PROCESS) Evening is beginning to fall as Muriel drives Bill into town. MURIEL I'll scout around and find you a place in Lansdale. (quickly) Now, you're not going to change your mind about coming up? BILL Don't worry, I'll be on the job. MURIEL It won't be easy. I promise you a Cook's tour of every lamp maker, rug weaver, and antique shop in Lansdale County. BILL (philosophically) When I married you two I suppose I took you for better or for worse. Muriel smiles warmly, and in a friendly gesture reaches over and pats his hand. MURIEL Good old Uncle Bill. BILL (drily) Good old Uncle Bill. As they exchange an understanding smile: DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT It is dark outside and getting quite chilly. The children are unpacking a last barrel. They have made a rather unsteady pile of books and boxes, obviously Muriel's personal effects. Jim is in the process of trying to start his first fire in the fireplace. The immediate result is a clouding of the room with smoke. As he backs away, coughing, he bumps into the pile which falls to the floor spilling open a box which contains, among other things, Muriel's diary and a lifetime accumulation of sentimental trinkets. JIM Now look what you've done! Betsy coughs her way to the fireplace, turns the flue handle. The smoke immediately goes up the chimney and the room starts to clear. BETSY Father, the first principle of lighting a fire is to see if the flue is open. A three-year-old child knows that. JIM Next time we want a fire I'll send out for a three-year-old child! (indicates trinkets) Get that stuff cleaned up and go in and help Gussie set the table. It's getting late. The children start gathering up the debris. Joan picks up some trinkets which have spilled from a cardboard box. JOAN Look, Dad, your fraternity pins. JIM (busy cleaning the fireplace) Pins? I only had one. JOAN There are two of them here. JIM All right, all right. Just put them away. JOAN (examining them) Funny, this one says W.C. on the back. W.C.? (brightly) William Cole! It must be Uncle Bill's! JIM Huh? (reaching for it) Let me see that. (examining pin) Hmmmm. Betsy has picked up a small leather-bound book. She whistles. JOAN What's that? BETSY Mother's diary when she was in college. It's slightly torrid. JOAN (coming over) Let's see. JIM (sharply) That's none of your business! BETSY (scanning page) I'd say mother and Uncle Bill were somewhat of an item! JIM (taking book from Betsy) People do not read other people's diaries! It's not a very nice thing to do! (shooting them out) Now go in there and help Gussie with the table. BETSY (indicating debris) What about --? JIM I'll take care of that. Now, shoo, shoo. The children exit. Jim is about to put down the diary when his curiosity gets the better of him. Making sure he's unobserved, he sits down on a box, opens the book, starts to read. As his brows wrinkle with concern: DISSOLVE EXT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT The wind is howling, the trees swaying. The lights are on in the kitchen. CAMERA MOVES UP to the open kitchen window. INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT The family, in overcoats, is huddled around the kitchen table finishing dinner. Gussie, in overcoat and muffler, is clearing the dishes away. Jim, a sober look on his face, rises, takes a steaming kettle from the stove. MURIEL Where are you going? JIM To shave. MURIEL Tonight?? JIM While I can still trust myself with a razor. At six o'clock in the morning I'd probably cut my throat. Goodnight. Jim abruptly exits. Muriel looks after him with concern. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' BATHROOM - NIGHT Jim, in his pajamas and overcoat is shaving. After a few moments Muriel, in her nightgown and overcoat, enters the scene. MURIEL Excuse... She takes her toothbrush and opens the cabinet, Jim automatically moving around back of it in their previously established pattern. As Muriel puts the paste on her brush, replaces the tube, shuts the cabinet and starts to brush her teeth, Jim uncomfortably moves back to his original position. MURIEL Excuse... JIM Muriel, do you have to do that now?! MURIEL There's no need to be so irritable just because you have to shave at night. JIM I'm not irritable! MURIEL Well, you're certainly something! You haven't said a civil word all evening. JIM Sometimes a man doesn't feel like talking. MURIEL (solicitously) What is it, dear? Something down at the office? JIM No. MURIEL Have you got the new slogan for "Wham"? JIM It's not due yet! MURIEL Well, it's something. You're certainly upset about something. I can always tell. JIM I'm not upset. (going back to shaving; with studied unconcern) It's just that I don't happen to approve of falsehood and deception. Particularly in my own wife. MURIEL What are you talking about? JIM (same) Oh, nothing. It's just that I distinctly remember your telling me you gave back Bill's fraternity pin fifteen years ago. Muriel looks at him, puzzled. JIM Well, did you or didn't you? MURIEL Did I, or didn't I what? JIM Give it back to him. MURIEL Of course I did. If I said I did, I did. JIM (suddenly Sam Spade) Then perhaps you'd have the goodness to explain how this happened to fall out of your jewel box? He takes the pin out of his pocket and hands it to her. Muriel takes the pin, looks at it sentimentally. Suddenly she looks at Jim and bursts out laughing. JIM What's so funny? MURIEL You! You're jealous! You're standing there with your face full of soap and you're jealous. JIM (angrily) If you were so crazy about the guy, why didn't you marry him?! MURIEL (beginning to be a little angry) Because I wasn't in love with him! JIM (vindictively) That's not what you said in your diary! MURIEL (now really angry) Oh, now you've been reading my diary! JIM (a little guilty) Well -- it happened to fall open and... I... happened to look at it. It... just happened. MURIEL I'll just bet! JIM It's all over the book so why don't you admit it? You were in love with Bill Cole! MURIEL Don't be absurd! Of course I was in love with Bill. In those days I was in love with a new man every week. JIM Then why did you marry me? MURIEL I'm beginning to wonder! (exploding) Maybe it was those big cow eyes of yours or that ridiculous hole in your chin! Maybe I knew that some day you'd bring me out to this thirty- eight thousand dollar icebox with a dried-up trout stream and no windows! Or maybe I just happened to fall in love with you -- but for heaven's sake, don't ask me why! Muriel stalks out of the bathroom. Jim looks after her, thoughtfully starts to dry his face. INT. THE BEDROOM Jim enters. Muriel stands with her back to him angrily winding the clock. Jim noisily clears his throat. No reaction. JIM (tentatively) ...Muriel? No reaction. JIM ...Honey? No reaction. JIM Would it do any good to say I'm sorry? MURIEL I don't know. Jim gently turns her around facing him. JIM Well -- I am. I acted like a schoolboy and I'm sorry. Muriel looks at Jim. Finally she smiles. MURIEL Oh, Jim! She goes into his arms and they kiss intimately. As their lips part: MURIEL (dreamily) Why don't you take the soap out of your ears? JIM (same) Why do I love you so much? Jim again kisses her tenderly, warmly. MURIEL (breathless) Darling, it's awfully late. Jim kisses her again, a little more ardently. MURIEL (same) Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors. JIM (kissing her ear) What for? The windows are all open anyway. MURIEL (as he starts to kiss her again) Jim, you have to get up at six o'clock. JIM (considers; logic prevails; brief sigh) Yes, I guess so. MURIEL (reluctantly) Goodnight, dear. JIM (same) Goodnight. Each gets into his own bed, still wearing the overcoats. DISSOLVE INSERT JIM'S COST CHART - The house now wavers at $37,000. As Jim and Muriel still try to stem the tide, the group that is pushing the house ever upward includes all of the previous people connected with the house and -- in addition --plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, etc. Over this, and across the scene flutter more bills, more extras. BILL'S VOICE And so the days sped by -- and the bills -- and the extras -- and as the house approached forty thousand dollars, Jim approached his deadline for the new slogan. It was almost a photo finish. DISSOLVE EXT. RADIO CITY - NIGHT (STOCK) It is raining. The lights are on in the buildings. INT. JIM'S OFFICE - NIGHT Mary is attending to some detail work as the door opens and Jim enters, disturbed. Mary looks at him questioningly. JIM You'd better send out for coffee and sandwiches,... It looks like an all night session. MARY (concerned) What did he say? JIM (wearily, seating himself at desk) Tomorrow morning. MARY (sighs) Well, I guess you'll just have to dream something up -- good or bad. JIM I rather got the impression it had better be good. MARY (raised eyebrow) Oh. He picks up a pencil, nibbles on it thoughtfully. The silence in the room is broken only by the patter of raindrops on the window. It strikes a note in Jim's subconscious. He swivels around in his chair and stares soberly out the window. JIM (ruminatively, almost to himself) Funny how you look forward to the little things. Rain, for instance. Mary looks at him curiously. He turns to her. JIM For a month now, I guess I've been looking forward to the first rainy night at the house. (looks at Muriel's picture) Big blazing fire. Muriel knitting. Me in my new smoking jacket... with my pipe and slippers, reading my paper... (sighs) Oh, well. As he starts to work. DISSOLVE INT. THE BLANDINGS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Note: The house is painted and almost completely furnished. A hard rain beats on the windows. There is a blazing fire in the fireplace. Muriel, in a warm bathrobe, sits near it, comfortably knitting. In fact, the scene is exactly the one Jim has just described, except that the man with slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, reading the paper, is Bill Cole. Near the fire, Bill's rain-drenched jacket, shirt and shoes are hanging up to dry. The cozy tranquillity is broken by a sharp RINGING of the front doorbell. MURIEL (with relief) Thank heavens! The children. BILL (rising) Stay put. You look too comfortable. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Bill to the front door. He opens it. A man in raincoat and boots stands there in the pouring, driving rain. The man enters as Bill struggles to get the door shut against the wind. MR. JONES Whew! What a night! I'm Jones, from down the road. Just came over to tell you your kids are all right, Mr. Blandings. BILL Oh, I'm not Mr. Blandings. Cole's the name, Bill Cole. He sees Jones' doubtful look at the smoking jacket, feels an explanation is necessary. BILL Friend of the family. Wet clothes. Just came in out of the rain. Muriel walks into scene. Jones takes in the bathrobe, again looks skeptically at Bill. MURIEL I'm Mrs. Blandings. JONES How do. Mrs. Williams just called. Says your phone's out of order. Wanted me to tell you the water's rising and they've got the bridge roped off. Girls'll spend the night over at her place. MURIEL Thank you. I was beginning to get concerned. Can I make you a cup of tea? JONES No, thanks. Better be gettin' back 'fore I have to swim for it. 'Night, Mrs. Blandings. (to Bill) 'Night, Mr. Bl-- BILL (weak smile) Cole. Bill Cole. Friend of the family. Just came in out of the rain. JONES (uncertainly) Well -- 'Night. MURIEL Goodnight... and thanks so much. The door is opened with a terrific swirl of wind and rain. Jones exits as Muriel and Bill push the door against the wind, finally getting it shut. BILL That's fine. No bridge. How do I get back to Lansdale? MURIEL (simply) You'll just have to spend the night right here. As they start back into the living room: BILL Muriel, really! With your husband in New York and your children away -- think of my reputation. MURIEL (smile) Don't worry, Snow White, you'll be as pure and unsullied in the morning as you were the night before. BILL (with resignation) That's the story of my life. Muriel pokes the dying fire, looks up thoughtfully. MURIEL Poor Jim, he sounded so worried before. I certainly hope he comes up with something. BILL Don't worry about the man who gave the world "When you've got the whim, say Wham!"-- This well will never run dry. SLOW DISSOLVE INT. JIM'S OFFICE - EARLY MORNING The CAMERA COMES IN ON a package of cigarettes. A finger impatiently rips open what is left of the package, discloses that it is empty. The ANGLE WIDENS to reveal a tired, disheveled Jim. Disgusted, he fishes the most likely butt from a tray littered with them. With considerable difficulty he manages to light it, only to burn his nose. Impatiently stamping out the butt he rises, stretches, walks to the window, pulls up the shade. Early morning sunlight floods the room. He turns off a standing lamp, looks thoughtfully out the window, suddenly gets an idea. Turning, he snaps his fingers. Mary, who is asleep on the desk, her head resting on her elbows, raises her head, opens a sleepy eye. JIM (selling; a note of desperation in his voice) "Compare the price, compare the slice, Take our advice -- Buy Wham!" Mary critically shakes her head "no", closes her eye. Jim wearily throws himself down on the couch, absently toys with his already loosened tie. He pulls it up over his nose, throwing the balance over the top of his head. Suddenly he reacts, snaps his fingers. Mary opens a sleepy eye. JIM "If you'd buy better ham. You'd better buy Wham!" MARY It's Boyle Petroleum. "If you'd buy better oil, You'd better buy Boyle." Her eye closes. Jim sinks back with defeat, his hand dropping over the edge of the couch. It encounters a crumpled piece of paper, earlier work. He smoothes the paper, scans it, kind of likes it. He gets up, comes over, snaps fingers. Mary looks up. JIM "This little pig went to market As meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks When they slipped him the axe He knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" A long silent look passes between them. JIM (quietly) "...knew he'd turn out to be Wham!" He suddenly and angrily gathers all his papers, slams them into the wastebasket. JIM (rising panic) It's gone! I've lost my touch! Maybe I never had a touch! Maybe "Whim Say Wham" was an accident! Who knows? I can't think any more! All I've got on my mind is a house with an eighteen thousand dollar mortgage, and bills, and extras, and antiques, and -- and -- (dejected) I don't know... I don't know. Mary looks at him sympathetically, doesn't quite know what to say. As the CAMERA MOVES to a CLOSE SHOT of the emotionally distraught Jim, his eyes go to a large photograph on his desk of Muriel and the children. He picks it up, looks at it with affection. Suddenly he gets an idea. Rising with determination he puts on his coat and starts for the door. MARY (startled) Where are you going? JIM Home, to get some sleep -- and I'd advise you to do the same. MARY But -- but you haven't -- JIM Suppose I haven't! This isn't the only job in town! MARY But -- but -- what'll I tell Mr. Dascomb? JIM (sharply) You just tell him to -- to -- (with finality) You just tell him! He exits. DISSOLVE EXT. THE BLANDINGS' HOME - DAY It is an especially beautiful, sunshiny morning. A rural- looking taxi deposits a weary Jim, who pays the driver. As the cab drives off, Jim looks speculatively at Simms' car, which is parked there, yawns, stretches, opens the door and enters. Under this a slightly sour underscoring of "Home On The Range." INT. BLANDINGS LIVING ROOM - DAY As Jim comes into the foyer, he sees Muriel, in nightgown and robe, talking to Mr. Simms. She holds the rolled-up volume of blueprints that went into building the house. JIM 'Morning, dear. MURIEL (going to him; solicitously) Darling, you must be exhausted. How did it go? JIM Fine. Fine. They kiss. MURIEL (obliquely) Is... everything all right? JIM (unenthusiastic) Everything's fine. (still in embrace; looking up) Hello, Simms, what brings you out with the morning dew? SIMMS Just dropped by to check the blueprints. Some extras came in from Retch this morning and there're a couple of things I thought we ought to go over together. JIM (arms still around Muriel; unconcerned) Really. What are they? SIMMS Well, let's see. (thumbing through sheets) Few little things here, all right, I guess. "Mortising five butts -- a dollar sixty-eight." JIM Let's not quibble about that. A man's entitled to mortise a few butts now and then. SIMMS (next sheet) Extra nails and screws -- three dollars, eighty-nine cents. JIM Petty larceny, but let him get away with it. SIMMS Now there's one here I frankly don't understand. Ah, here we are. (reads) "Changes in closet, twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars." Did you authorize that? JIM Well, we probably told him to -- (reacting) Twelve hundred and what?! SIMMS Forty-seven dollars. Changes in closet. (hands bill to Jim) JIM (explosively) Who does he think we are! (looks at bill; very businesslike) What's this notation: "Refer to Detail Sheet Number one thirty-five?" SIMMS (indicating blueprints) Far as I remember, that would be something in the back of the house. Let's just take a look. As he unrolls the blueprints, Jim looks suspiciously at Muriel. She seems a little nervous. SIMMS Ah, here we are. It isn't a closet at all. It's off the back pantry... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. JIM Oh... Mrs. Blandings' little flower sink. SIMMS (to Muriel) You didn't authorize any changes, did you? MURIEL (defensively) Well... they certainly weren't changes. JIM What -- have -- you -- done? MURIEL (speaking rapidly a little confused) I haven't done anything! And what I did was... just nothing at all. JIM What -- have -- you -- done?! MURIEL Well -- (rattling off) All I did was one day I saw four pieces of flagstone left over from the porch that were just going to be thrown away because nobody wanted them and I asked Mr. Retch if he wouldn't just put them down on the floor of the flower sink and poke a little cement between the cracks and give me a nice stone floor where it might be wet with flowers and things. That was absolutely all I did. During the above speech Simms sinks into a chair, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, a fact that isn't lost on Jim. JIM That's all you did? MURIEL Absolutely. Just four little pieces of flagstone. SIMMS (to Muriel; wearily) Did you by any chance authorize a drain? MURIEL (verge of tears) Of course I didn't. All I said was I wanted a nice stone floor and Mr. Retch was just as nice as could be and said, "You're the doctor," and that's all anybody ever said to anybody about anything. Jim takes a deep breath, turns to Simms. JIM ...Well? SIMMS (sigh; plunging in) All right, I think I can tell you what happened. First, the carpenters had to rip up the flooring that was already laid. Those planks run under the whole width of the pantry, so Retch had to knock the bottom out of the pantry wall to get at them. JIM AND MURIEL Jim and Muriel - Jim looks at Muriel as though he were premeditating first-degree murder. She averts his gaze. Over this: SIMMS' VOICE Then he had to chop out the tops of the joists under the flower sink space to make room for a cradle. I guess he bought some iron straps and fastened them to a big pan to give him something to hold the cement. What with that added load on the weakened joists, I'll bet he had to put a lally column down there for support, too. MURIEL It was just four little pieces of flagstone, and I only --- JIM Quiet! GROUP SHOT - DURING THE FOLLOWING SPEECH GROUP SHOT - During the following speech we see Bill Cole, in Jim's pajamas and robe come down the stairs and enter the room. Jim and Muriel are not aware of his presence. SIMMS Well, the main soil pipe runs under there on wall brackets, so Retch had to get his plumbing man back to take out a section so he could get that cradle set. I guess that meant he had to change the pitch of the soil pipe from one end of the house to the other. (looks up) 'Morning, Mr. Cole. BILL 'Morning. Hello, Jim. JIM (turning) Hello, Bill. Jim turns away, reacts, suddenly turns back to Bill, taking in the pajamas and robe. A little shocked but unwilling to believe the implication of what he sees, he looks to Muriel for an explanation. MURIEL (lamely) The bridge was roped off and Bill had to stay last night. JIM ...Oh. BILL (cheerily) Slept like a rock. JIM I'm delighted. Jim looks at Bill, then back at Muriel. SIMMS (clearing his throat) And then, of course, there are hot and cold water pipes hooked to the joists right under that pantry. They go up to the wing bathroom on the second floor, and I'll bet my bottom dollar he had to relocate them. THREE SHOT - JIM, MURIEL AND BILL. THREE SHOT - Jim, Muriel and Bill. Jim turns to listen but finds himself looking speculatively at Muriel and Bill. SIMMS' VOICE And I guess the electrician had to rip out about sixty feet of armored cable between the main panel and the junction box by the oil burner, including the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. FULL SHOT - GUSSIE APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY FULL SHOT - Gussie appears in the doorway in raincoat, carrying umbrella. GUSSIE 'Morning, everybody. Whew! What a night! JIM Where have you been? GUSSIE Lansdale. Couldn't get back across the bridge. JIM You... weren't here last night? GUSSIE They weren't letting anybody across that bridge, Mr. Blandings. (to Muriel) I passed the girls over at the Williams. They'll be along any minute. As Jim reacts: MURIEL (quickly) Thank you, Gussie. You'd better get breakfast started. As Gussie exits, Muriel turns to Simms. MURIEL Where were we? BILL We were at the two hundred twenty volt cable that goes to the stove. JIM Just a minute. (looks at Bill, then at Muriel) You mean the children weren't here last night either? MURIEL How could they be, dear? The bridge was closed. JIM I just came across it. MURIEL Well, it was closed last night. JIM (pointedly) It's open now! Embarrassed pause. BILL (attempt at breeziness) If you'll all excuse me -- I -- I think I'll just go up and slip into something a little more comfortable. Bill exits. Another pause. Simms, aware of the tension, wants to get out of there. SIMMS (rapidly) Well, that's about the size of it -- Through Simms' speech, Jim looks darkly at Muriel. SIMMS -- except that Retch had to repair the pantry wall and that meant getting a plasterer back. And of course, he couldn't have broken through that wall -- JIM All right, Simms, all right. We'll take care of it. SIMMS (preparing to exit) I'll admit it's a little steep. But I'll try to get Retch to knock a hundred dollars off the bill. If I can't get that, I'll certainly try for seventy-five. JIM Fine. SIMMS If he doesn't go for seventy-five, I'll take a stab at fifty. JIM You do that. SIMMS (at the door) Anyway, I'm almost sure we can get twenty-five. There is no answer. SIMMS (lamely) Well. Good day. He leaves. There is a deadly pause. MURIEL (carefully) Now dear, you're upset, you've got a lot of things on your mind -- JIM (with dangerous calm) Muriel, there's only one thing on my mind -- This house -- and how fast we can get rid of it! MURIEL That's not what you're thinking. JIM Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm thinking I was once a happy man! (the martyr) I didn't have a closet, I didn't have three bathrooms, but I did have my sanity, a few dollars in the bank, two children who loved me and a wife I could trust! MURIEL That's a fine thing to say! JIM I also had a job at Danton and Bascomb, something I don't happen to have at the moment! MURIEL Jim! JIM That's right, I've resigned! We're starting all over again! From scratch! And without this house! MURIEL (near tears) You love this house! JIM I hate it! In the b.g. Mr. Tesander enters, cap in hand, stands there, nervous and embarrassed. MURIEL You don't mean that. JIM Every word of it! Anybody who builds a house today is crazy! The minute you start, they put you on the list. The All-American Sucker list! Everywhere you turn they've got a hand in your pocket. If you take out their hands, they find more pockets! (explosively) It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy against every man and woman who want a home of their own! Against every boy and girl who were ever in love! Tesander clears his throat. Jim turns. JIM (sharply) What do you want?! A slight embarrassed pause. Then: TESANDER (shyly) Well, Mr. Blandings, there's a matter of twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. JIM (with a wild gleam) Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents! Why be a piker, Mr. Tesander? (emptying pockets) Take everything I've got! Spread it out among your pals! (advancing toward the bewildered Tesander) Wouldn't Retch like a little something? Maybe Zucca could use my new dinner jacket? It's open house, Mr. Tesander! Help yourself! If this isn't enough I'll come over to your place and do some odd chores. Maybe I can mow your lawn or scratch your back! TESANDER (simply) You don't understand, Mr. Blandings. This twelve dollars and eighty-six cents -- you don't owe me, I owe you. There is a momentary pause. JIM ...W-what was that? TESANDER (taking out money) Found I overcharged you. Almost three feet. He hands the money to Jim, who stares at it blankly. TESANDER Better count it. I think it's all there. Jim looks haplessly at Muriel, sheepish, guilty. MURIEL Thank you very much, Mr. Tesander. TESANDER Well, I guess I'd better be gettin' along. (looking around) Sure got a pretty place here. (at door; pauses; looks back) I'll tell Mr. Zucca about the dinner jacket. Jim and Muriel look at each other a little sheepishly. INT. THE FOYER As Tesander is about to exit, Bill, dressed, starts down the stairs. BILL Oh, Mr. Tesander -- could you give me a lift to town? TESANDER Yep. BILL Be right with you. INT. LIVING ROOM MURIEL (concerned) What did you mean before about losing your job? Will we really have to sell the house? JIM (miserable) I don't know, dear... I don't know. Bill enters. BILL In case anyone's interested, I'm leaving for town. (for Jim's benefit) If you want to count the silverware, I'll wait. JIM (sheepishly) Bill, be patient with me. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up. BILL (to Muriel) What happened to him? MURIEL Twelve dollars and eighty-six cents. BILL Mind if I say something? Jim and Muriel look at him curiously. BILL You know, I've kind of been the voice of doom about this whole project. Every step of the way I was firmly convinced you were getting fleeced, bilked, rooked, flimflammed and generally taken to the cleaners. And maybe you were. Maybe it cost you a whole lot more than you thought it would. Maybe there were times when you wished you'd never started the whole thing. But when I look around and see what you two have here -- I don't know. (pause) Maybe there are some

profession

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

to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

family

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

soon

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

marriage

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

spirit

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

everybody

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

matoaca

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

seven

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

to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

train

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

to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

talking

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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to her, I believe it would kill me. Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he hates it. Your loving VIRGINIA. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me. * * * * * MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886. MY DARLING MOTHER: I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it is between my letters. We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect anything else. And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother, I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your own comfort and father's to give it to me. I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little house near the rectory. Your loving child, VIRGINIA. CHAPTER III THE RETURN On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the corner of Old Street. "You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The train gets in at four o'clock." "Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity." "She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her." "It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?" "Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the prettiest baby she ever saw." "Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty." "That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family." "I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after his father, too." "Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in this play he has written than he is in the children." "I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. That's splendid, isn't it?" "He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say he was very faithful and persevering about it." "You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you hadn't quite decided about it." "I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute." "Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?" "Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be so fond of sweetbreads." "Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't been well for the last few days." "I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks." "When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning back after they had parted. "In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night away from the children for anything on earth." "Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?" "Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare and Milton rolled into one." "Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman to bring out the best in him." "You'll think so when you see them together." Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton would probably have said that she had "settled." At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a moment discussing Virginia's return. "I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice." "Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?" "If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again." "You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not." "Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle." "Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did." Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived it. "Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked. "I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the children before they are put to bed." "Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers me." She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was a smile on her face which made it almost pretty. The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall. "I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling." "What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are some beautiful grapes I've brought you." "I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone." "Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia." "Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything." "But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You must have forgotten." "I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually passive features. "Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap." Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window. "I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my family." "I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up and eat these oysters." "I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered out until they were as common as dirt." "Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and her mother received and ate it obediently. "If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest easier, Susan." "Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing." "Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish. At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. Pendleton, who stood on the pavement. "Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement of homecoming. "Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?" "She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want to see if you've changed." "Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were transfigured as by a flood of light. "This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?" "He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. "As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin building." "Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?" No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a pang, that would break early. "Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind me?" "The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, so perfectly delighted." "By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father." "But they are such nice babies, Oliver." "Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about something else!" he added in mock despair. Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the sleeping Jenny up to the nursery. "Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs." "But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor little thing has had such a trying day." "Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you try it." "Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own. "Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry since we got here." "I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement." "Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can hear him talking." "You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow with these caps and shawls." "Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of him. While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the stairs. "Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm afraid she will not get down again to see you." "Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a man of personality." "He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good as gold." "Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over the disappointment." "Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver. "It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied to think of her so far away." "Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort. "By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. "I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels." Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were in Virginia's. "I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain. At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial charm. "You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household--and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity--but if they have a failing, which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted where their children--especially their sons--are concerned." "I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to the others." "It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I remember when we lost our babies--you know we had three before Virginia came, but none of them lived more than a few hours--that I thought Lucy would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human being." "I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but--do you know?--I stopped to ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing--that I could go on writing as if nothing had happened." "I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see anything except perfection. When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale blue

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