Rewards and Fairies

  A Doctor of Medicine

  They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. Dan hadhung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in thewalled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry bushes ready to dashoff when Una should spy him. He saw her lamp come into the garden anddisappear as she hid it under her cloak. While he listened for herfootsteps, somebody (they both thought it was Phillips the gardener)coughed in the corner of the herb-beds.

  'All right,' Una shouted across the asparagus; 'we aren't hurting yourold beds, Phippsey!'

  She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of lightthey saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a steeple-crownedhat, walking down the path beside Puck. They ran to meet him, and theman said something to them about rooms in their head. After a time theyunderstood he was warning them not to catch colds.

  'You've a bit of a cold yourself, haven't you?' said Una, for he endedall his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed.

  'Child,' the man answered, 'if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict me withan infirmity--'

  'Nay, nay,' Puck struck In, 'the maid spoke out of kindness. I know thathalf your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and that's a pity.There's honesty enough in you, Nick, without rasping and hawking.'

  'Good people'--the man shrugged his lean shoulders--'the vulgar crowdlove not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers must needs dress herto catch their eye or--ahem!---their ear.'

  'And what d'you think of that?' said Puck solemnly to Dan.

  'I don't know,' he answered. 'It sounds like lessons.'

  'Ah--well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to take lessonsfrom. Now, where can we sit that's not indoors?'

  'In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,' Dan suggested. 'He doesn'tmind.'

  'Eh?' Mr Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore blooms by thelight of Una's lamp. 'Does Master Middenboro need my poor services,then?'

  'Save him, no!' said Puck. 'He is but a horse--next door to an ass, asyou'll see presently. Come!'

  Their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit-tree walls. They filed out ofthe garden by the snoring pig-pound and the crooning hen-house, to theshed where Middenboro the old lawn-mower pony lives. His friendly eyesshowed green in the light as they set their lamps down on the chickens'drinking-trough outside, and pushed past to the hay-mow. Mr Culpeperstooped at the door.

  'Mind where you lie,' said Dan. 'This hay's full of hedge-brishings.

  'In! in!' said Puck. 'You've lain in fouler places than this, Nick.Ah! Let us keep touch with the stars!' He kicked open the top of thehalf-door, and pointed to the clear sky. 'There be the planets youconjure with! What does your wisdom make of that wandering and variablestar behind those apple boughs?'

  The children smiled. A bicycle that they knew well was being walked downthe steep lane. 'Where?' Mr Culpeper leaned forward quickly. 'That? Somecountryman's lantern.'

  'Wrong, Nick,' said Puck. ''Tis a singular bright star in Virgo,declining towards the house of Aquarius the water-carrier, who hathlately been afflicted by Gemini. Aren't I right, Una?' Mr Culpepersnorted contemptuously.

  'No. It's the village nurse going down to the Mill about some freshtwins that came there last week. Nurse,' Una called, as the lightstopped on the flat, 'when can I see the Morris twins? And how arethey?'

  'Next Sunday, perhaps. Doing beautifully,' the Nurse called back, andwith a ping-ping-ping of the bell brushed round the corner.

  'Her uncle's a vetinary surgeon near Banbury,' Una explained, and if youring her bell at night, it rings right beside her bed--not downstairsat all. Then she 'umps up--she always keeps a pair of dry boots in thefender, you know--and goes anywhere she's wanted. We help her bicyclethrough gaps sometimes. Most of her babies do beautifully. She told usso herself.'

  'I doubt not, then, that she reads in my books,' said Mr Culpeperquietly. 'Twins at the Mill!' he muttered half aloud. "And again Hesayeth, Return, ye children of men."'

  'Are you a doctor or a rector?' Una asked, and Puck with a shout turnedhead over heels in the hay. But Mr Culpeper was quite serious. He toldthem that he was a physician-astrologer--a doctor who knew all about thestars as well as all about herbs for medicine. He said that the sun,the moon, and five Planets, called Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, andVenus, governed everybody and everything in the world. They all livedin Houses--he mapped out some of them against the dark with a busyforefinger--and they moved from House to House like pieces at draughts;and they went loving and hating each other all over the skies. If youknew their likes and dislikes, he said, you could make them cure yourpatient and hurt your enemy, and find out the secret causes of things.He talked of these five Planets as though they belonged to him, or asthough he were playing long games against them. The children burrowedin the hay up to their chins, and looked out over the half-door at thesolemn, star-powdered sky till they seemed to be falling upside downinto it, while Mr Culpeper talked about 'trines' and 'oppositions' and'conjunctions' and 'sympathies' and 'antipathies' in a tone that justmatched things.

  A rat ran between Middenboro's feet, and the old pony stamped.

  'Mid hates rats,' said Dan, and passed him over a lock of hay. 'I wonderwhy.'

  'Divine Astrology tells us,' said Mr Culpeper. 'The horse, being amartial beast that beareth man to battle, belongs naturally to the redplanet Mars--the Lord of War. I would show you him, but he's too nearhis setting. Rats and mice, doing their businesses by night, come underthe dominion of our Lady the Moon. Now between Mars and Luna, the onered, t'other white, the one hot t'other cold and so forth, stands, asI have told you, a natural antipathy, or, as you say, hatred. Whichantipathy their creatures do inherit. Whence, good people, you may bothsee and hear your cattle stamp in their stalls for the self-same causesas decree the passages of the stars across the unalterable face ofHeaven! Ahem!' Puck lay along chewing a leaf. They felt him shake withlaughter, and Mr Culpeper sat up stiffly.

  'I myself' said he, 'have saved men's lives, and not a few neither, byobserving at the proper time--there is a time, mark you, for allthings under the sun--by observing, I say, so small a beast as a ratin conjunction with so great a matter as this dread arch above us.' Heswept his hand across the sky. 'Yet there are those,' he went on sourly,'who have years without knowledge.'

  'Right,' said Puck. 'No fool like an old fool.'

  Mr Culpeper wrapped his cloak round him and sat still while the childrenstared at the Great Bear on the hilltop.

  'Give him time,' Puck whispered behind his hand. 'He turns like atimber-tug--all of a piece.'

  'Ahem!' Mr Culpeper said suddenly. 'I'll prove it to you. When I wasphysician to Saye's Horse, and fought the King--or rather the manCharles Stuart--in Oxfordshire (I had my learning at Cambridge), theplague was very hot all around us. I saw it at close hands. He whosays I am ignorant of the plague, for example, is altogether beside thebridge.'

  'We grant it,' said Puck solemnly. 'But why talk of the plague this rarenight?'

  'To prove my argument. This Oxfordshire plague, good people, beinggenerated among rivers and ditches, was of a werish, watery nature.Therefore it was curable by drenching the patient in cold water, andlaying him in wet cloths; or at least, so I cured some of them. Markthis. It bears on what shall come after.'

  'Mark also, Nick,' said Puck, that we are not your College ofPhysicians, but only a lad and a lass and a poor lubberkin. Therefore beplain, old Hyssop on the Wall!'

  'To be plain and in order with you, I was shot in the chest whilegathering of betony from a brookside near Thame, and was took by theKing's men before their Colonel, one Blagg or Bragge, whom I warnedhonestly that I had spent the week past among our plague-stricken. Heflung me off into a cowshed, much like this here, to die, as I supposed;but one of their priests crept in by night and dressed my wound. He wasa Sussex man like myself.'

  'Who was that?' said Puck suddenly. 'Zack Tutshom?'

  'No, Jack Marget,' said Mr Culpeper.

&nbs
p; 'Jack Marget of New College? The little merry man that stammered so? Whya plague was stuttering Jack at Oxford then?' said Puck.

  'He had come out of Sussex in hope of being made a Bishop when the Kingshould have conquered the rebels, as he styled us Parliament men. HisCollege had lent the King some monies too, which they never got again,no more than simple Jack got his bishopric. When we met he had had abitter bellyful of King's promises, and wished to return to his wife andbabes. This came about beyond expectation, for, so soon as I couldstand of my wound, the man Blagge made excuse that I had been among theplague, and Jack had been tending me, to thrust us both out from theircamp. The King had done with Jack now that Jack's College had lent themoney, and Blagge's physician could not abide me because I would notsit silent and see him butcher the sick. (He was a College of Physiciansman!) So Blagge, I say, thrust us both out, with many vile words, for apair of pestilent, prating, pragmatical rascals.'

  'Ha! Called you pragmatical, Nick?' Puck started up. 'High time Olivercame to purge the land! How did you and honest Jack fare next?'

  'We were in some sort constrained to each other's company. I was forgoing to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his parish in Sussex;but the plague was broke out and spreading through Wiltshire, Berkshire,and Hampshire, and he was so mad distracted to think that it might eventhen be among his folk at home that I bore him company. He had comfortedme in my distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that Ihad a cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack's parish. Thus we footed itfrom Oxford, cassock and buff coat together, resolute to leave wars onthe left side henceforth; and either through our mean appearances, orthe plague making men less cruel, we were not hindered. To be sure, theyput us in the stocks one half-day for rogues and vagabonds at a villageunder St Leonard's forest, where, as I have heard, nightingales neversing; but the constable very honestly gave me back my AstrologicalAlmanac, which I carry with me.' Mr Culpeper tapped his thin chest. 'Idressed a whitlow on his thumb. So we went forward.

  'Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over against JackMarget's parish in a storm of rain about the day's end. Here our roadsdivided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at Great Wigsell, butwhile Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we saw a man lying drunk,as he conceived, athwart the road. He said it would be one Hebden, aparishioner, and till then a man of good life; and he accused himselfbitterly for an unfaithful shepherd, that had left his flock to followprinces. But I saw it was the plague, and not the beginnings of itneither. They had set out the plague-stone, and the man's head lay onit.'

  'What's a plague-stone?' Dan whispered.

  'When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut theroads against 'em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, where suchas would purchase victual from outside may lay money and the paper oftheir wants, and depart. Those that would sell come later--what willa man not do for gain?---snatch the money forth, and leave in exchangesuch goods as their conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groatin the water, and the man's list of what he would buy was rain-pulped inhis wet hand.

  '"My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!" says Jack of a sudden, and makesuphill--I with him.

  'A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the village isstricken with the plague, and that for our lives' sake we must avoid it.

  '"Sweetheart!" says Jack. "Must I avoid thee?" and she leaps at him andsays the babes are safe. She was his wife.

  'When he had thanked God, even to tears, he tells me this was not thewelcome he had intended, and presses me to flee the place while I wasclean.

  '"Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee now," I said."These affairs are, under God's leave, in some fashion my strength."

  '"Oh, sir," she says, "are you a physician? We have none."

  '"Then, good people," said I, "I must e'en justify myself to you by myworks."

  '"Look--look ye," stammers Jack, "I took you all this time for a crazyRoundhead preacher." He laughs, and she, and then I--all three togetherin the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or clap of laughter,which none the less eased us. We call it in medicine the HystericalPassion. So I went home with 'em.'

  'Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell, Nick?' Pucksuggested. ''tis barely seven mile up the road.'

  'But the plague was here,' Mr Culpeper answered, and pointed up thehill. 'What else could I have done?'

  'What were the parson's children called?' said Una.

  'Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles--a babe. I scarce saw them atfirst, for I separated to live with their father in a cart-lodge. Themother we put--forced--into the house with her babes. She had doneenough.

  'And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in this case. Theplague was worst on the north side of the street, for lack, as I showed'em, of sunshine; which, proceeding from the PRIME MOBILE, or source oflife (I speak astrologically), is cleansing and purifying in the highestdegree. The plague was hot too by the corn-chandler's, where they sellforage to the carters, extreme hot in both Mills, along the river, andscatteringly in other places, except, mark you, at the smithy. Markhere, that all forges and smith shops belong to Mars, even as corn andmeat and wine shops acknowledge Venus for their mistress. There was noplague in the smithy at Munday's Lane--'

  'Munday's Lane? You mean our village? I thought so when you talked aboutthe two Mills,' cried Dan. 'Where did we put the plague-stone? I'd liketo have seen it.'

  'Then look at it now,' said Puck, and pointed to the chickens'drinking-trough where they had set their bicycle lamps. It was a rough,oblong stone pan, rather like a small kitchen sink, which Phillips,who never wastes anything, had found in a ditch and had used for hisprecious hens.

  'That?' said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared. MrCulpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on.

  'I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I would haveyou follow, so far as you may, the operations of my mind. That plaguewhich I told you I had handled outside Wallingford in Oxfordshire wasof a watery nature, conformable to the brookish riverine country it bredin, and curable, as I have said, by drenching in water. This plague ofours here, for all that it flourished along watercourses--every soul atboth Mills died of it,--could not be so handled. Which brought me to astand. Ahem!'

  'And your sick people in the meantime?'Puck demanded. 'We persuaded themon the north side of the street to lie out in Hitheram's field. Wherethe plague had taken one, or at most two, in a house, folk would notshift for fear of thieves in their absence. They cast away their livesto die among their goods.'

  'Human nature,' said Puck. 'I've seen it time and again. How did yoursick do in the fields?'

  'They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors, and eventhen they died more out of distraction and melancholy than plague. ButI confess, good people, I could not in any sort master the sickness, orcome at a glimmer of its nature or governance. To be brief, I was flatbewildered at the brute malignity of the disease, and so--did what Ishould have done before--dismissed all conjectures and apprehensionsthat had grown up within me, chose a good hour by my Almanac, clappedmy vinegar-cloth to my face, and entered some empty houses, resigned towait upon the stars for guidance.'

  'At night? Were you not horribly frightened?' said Puck.

  'I dared to hope that the God who hath made man so nobly curious tosearch out His mysteries might not destroy a devout seeker. In duetime--there's a time, as I have said, for everything under the sun--Ispied a whitish rat, very puffed and scabby, which sat beneath thedormer of an attic through which shined our Lady the Moon. Whilst Ilooked on him--and her--she was moving towards old cold Saturn, herancient ally--the rat creeped languishingly into her light, and there,before my eyes, died. Presently his mate or companion came out, laid himdown beside there, and in like fashion died too. Later--an hour orless to midnight--a third rat did e'en the same; always choosing themoonlight to die in. This threw me into an amaze, since, as we know, themoonligh
t is favourable, not hurtful, to the creatures of the Moon;and Saturn, being friends with her, as you would say, was hourlystrengthening her evil influence. Yet these three rats had been strickendead in very moonlight. I leaned out of the window to see which ofHeaven's host might be on our side, and there beheld I good trusty Mars,very red and heated, bustling about his setting. I straddled the roof tosee better.

  'Jack Marget came up street going to comfort our sick in Hitheram'sfield. A tile slipped under my foot.

  Says he, heavily enough, "Watchman, what of the night?"

  '"Heart up, Jack," says I. "Methinks there's one fighting for us that,like a fool, I've forgot all this summer." My meaning was naturally theplanet Mars.

  '"Pray to Him then," says he. "I forgot Him too this summer."

  'He meant God, whom he always bitterly accused himself of havingforgotten up in Oxfordshire, among the King's men. I called down thathe had made amends enough for his sin by his work among the sick, but hesaid he would not believe so till the plague was lifted from 'em. He wasat his strength's end--more from melancholy than any just cause. I haveseen this before among priests and overcheerful men. I drenched him thenand there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague,but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.'

  'What were they?' said Dan.

  'White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts ofpepper, and aniseed.' 'Whew!' said Puck. 'Waters you call 'em!'

  'Jack coughed on it valiantly, and went downhill with me. I was for theLower Mill in the valley, to note the aspect of the Heavens. My mind hadalready shadowed forth the reason, if not the remedy, for our troubles,but I would not impart it to the vulgar till I was satisfied. Thatpractice may be perfect, judgment ought to be sound, and to makejudgment sound is required an exquisite knowledge. Ahem! I left Jack andhis lantern among the sick in Hitheram's field. He still maintainedthe prayers of the so-called Church, which were rightly forbidden byCromwell.'

  'You should have told your cousin at Wigsell,' said Puck, 'and Jackwould have been fined for it, and you'd have had half the money. How didyou come so to fail in your duty, Nick?'

  Mr Culpeper laughed--his only laugh that evening--and the childrenjumped at the loud neigh of it.

  'We were not fearful of men's judgment in those days,' he answered. 'Nowmark me closely, good people, for what follows will be to you, thoughnot to me, remarkable. When I reached the empty Mill, old Saturn, lowdown in the House of the Fishes, threatened the Sun's rising-place. OurLady the Moon was moving towards the help of him (understand, I speakastrologically). I looked abroad upon the high Heavens, and I prayed theMaker of 'em for guidance. Now Mars sparkingly withdrew himself belowthe sky. On the instant of his departure, which I noted, a bright staror vapour leaped forth above his head (as though he had heaved up hissword), and broke all about in fire. The cocks crowed midnight throughthe valley, and I sat me down by the mill-wheel, chewing spearmint(though that's an herb of Venus), and calling myself all the asses'heads in the world! 'Twas plain enough now!'

  'What was plain?' said Una.

  'The true cause and cure of the plague. Mars, good fellow, had foughtfor us to the uttermost. Faint though he had been in the Heavens, andthis had made me overlook him in my computations, he more than anyof the other planets had kept the Heavens--which is to say, had beenvisible some part of each night wellnigh throughout the year. Thereforehis fierce and cleansing influence, warring against the Moon, hadstretched out to kill those three rats under my nose, and under the noseof their natural mistress, the Moon. I had known Mars lean half acrossHeaven to deal our Lady the Moon some shrewd blow from under his shield,but I had never before seen his strength displayed so effectual.'

  'I don't understand a bit. Do you mean Mars killed the rats because hehated the Moon?' said Una.

  'That is as plain as the pikestaff with which Blagge's men pushed meforth,'Mr Culpeper answered. 'I'll prove it. Why had the plague notbroken out at the blacksmith's shop in Munday's Lane? Because, as I'veshown you, forges and smithies belong naturally to Mars, and, for hishonour's sake, Mars 'ud keep 'em clean from the creatures of the Moon.But was it like, think you, that he'd come down and rat-catch in generalfor lazy, ungrateful mankind? That were working a willing horse todeath. So, then, you can see that the meaning of the blazing star abovehim when he set was simply this: "Destroy and burn the creatures Of themoon, for they are the root of your trouble. And thus, having shown youa taste of my power, good people, adieu."'

  'Did Mars really say all that?' Una whispered.

  'Yes, and twice so much as that to any one who had ears to hear.Briefly, he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the creaturesof the Moon. The Moon, our Lady of ill-aspect, was the offender. My ownpoor wits showed me that I, Nick Culpeper, had the people in my charge,God's good providence aiding me, and no time to lose neither.

  'I posted up the hill, and broke into Hitheram's field amongst 'em allat prayers.

  '"Eureka, good people!" I cried, and cast down a dead mill-rat which I'dfound. "Here's your true enemy, revealed at last by the stars."

  '"Nay, but I'm praying," says Jack. His face was as white as washedsilver.

  '"There's a time for everything under the sun," says I. "If you wouldstay the plague, take and kill your rats."

  '"Oh, mad, stark mad!" says he, and wrings his hands.

  'A fellow lay in the ditch beside him, who bellows that he'd as soon diemad hunting rats as be preached to death on a cold fallow. Theylaughed round him at this, but Jack Marget falls on his knees, and verypresumptuously petitions that he may be appointed to die to save therest of his people. This was enough to thrust 'em back into theirmelancholy. '"You are an unfaithful shepherd, jack," I says. "Take abat" (which we call a stick in Sussex) "and kill a rat if you die beforesunrise. 'Twill save your people."

  '"Aye, aye. Take a bat and kill a rat," he says ten times over, likea child, which moved 'em to ungovernable motions of that hystericalpassion before mentioned, so that they laughed all, and at leastwarmed their chill bloods at that very hour--one o'clock or a littleafter--when the fires of life burn lowest. Truly there is a time foreverything; and the physician must work with it--ahem!--or miss hiscure. To be brief with you, I persuaded 'em, sick or sound, to haveat the whole generation of rats throughout the village. And there's areason for all things too, though the wise physician need not blab 'emall. Imprimis, or firstly, the mere sport of it, which lasted ten days,drew 'em most markedly out of their melancholy. I'd defy sorrowfuljob himself to lament or scratch while he's routing rats from a rick.Secundo, or secondly, the vehement act and operation of this chase orwar opened their skins to generous transpiration--more vulgarly, sweated'em handsomely; and this further drew off their black bile--the motherof sickness. Thirdly, when we came to burn the bodies of the rats,I sprinkled sulphur on the faggots, whereby the onlookers were ashandsomely suffumigated. This I could not have compassed if I had madeit a mere physician's business; they'd have thought it some conjuration.Yet more, we cleansed, limed, and burned out a hundred foul poke-holes,sinks, slews, and corners of unvisited filth in and about the houses inthe village, and by good fortune (mark here that Mars was in oppositionto Venus) burned the corn-handler's shop to the ground. Mars loves notVenus. Will Noakes the saddler dropped his lantern on a truss of strawwhile he was rat-hunting there.'

  'Had ye given Will any of that gentle cordial of yours, Nick, by anychance?' said Puck.

  'A glass--or two glasses--not more. But as I would say, in fine, when wehad killed the rats, I took ash, slag, and charcoal from the smithy,and burnt earth from the brickyard (I reason that a brickyard belongsto Mars), and rammed it with iron crowbars into the rat-runs and buries,and beneath all the house floors. The Creatures of the Moon hate allthat Mars hath used for his own clean ends. For example--rats bite notiron.'

  'And how did poor stuttering Jack endure it?' said Puck.

  'He sweated out his melancholy through his skin, and catched aloose cough, which I cured wi
th electuaries, according to art. It isnoteworthy, were I speaking among my equals, that the venom of theplague translated, or turned itself into, and evaporated, or went awayas, a very heavy hoarseness and thickness of the head, throat, andchest. (Observe from my books which planets govern these portions ofman's body, and your darkness, good people, shall be illuminated--ahem!)None the less, the plague, qua plague, ceased and took off (for we onlylost three more, and two of 'em had it already on 'em) from themorning of the day that Mars enlightened me by the Lower Mill.' Hecoughed--almost trumpeted--triumphantly.

  'It is proved,' he jerked out. 'I say I have proved my contention, whichis, that by Divine Astrology and humble search into the veritable causesof things--at the proper time--the sons of wisdom may combat even theplague.'

  H'm!' Puck replied. 'For my own part I hold that a simple soul--'

  'Mine? Simple, forsooth?' said Mr Culpeper.

  'A very simple soul, a high courage tempered with sound and stubbornconceit, is stronger than all the stars in their courses. So I confesstruly that you saved the village, Nick.'

  'I stubborn? I stiff-necked? I ascribed all my poor success, under God'sgood providence, to Divine Astrology. Not to me the glory! You talk asthat dear weeping ass Jack Marget preached before I went back to my workin Red Lion House, Spitalfields.'

  'Oh! Stammering Jack preached, did he? They say he loses his stammer inthe pulpit.'

  'And his wits with it. He delivered a most idolatrous discourse when theplague was stayed. He took for his text: "The wise man that deliveredthe city." I could have given him a better, such as: "There is a timefor--"'

  'But what made you go to church to hear him?' Puck interrupted. 'WailAttersole was your lawfully appointed preacher, and a dull dog he was!'

  Mr Culpeper wriggled uneasily.

  'The vulgar,' said he, 'the old crones and--ahem!---the children, Alisonand the others, they dragged me to the House of Rimmon by the hand. Iwas in two minds to inform on Jack for maintaining the mummeries of thefalsely-called Church, which, I'll prove to you, are founded merely onancient fables--'

  'Stick to your herbs and planets,' said Puck, laughing. 'You shouldhave told the magistrates, Nick, and had Jack fined. Again, why did youneglect your plain duty?'

  'Because--because I was kneeling, and praying, and weeping with the restof 'em at the Altar-rails. In medicine this is called the HystericalPassion. It may be--it may be.'

  'That's as may be,' said Puck. They heard him turn the hay. 'Why, yourhay is half hedge-brishings,' he said. 'You don't expect a horse tothrive on oak and ash and thorn leaves, do you?'

  Ping-ping-ping went the bicycle bell round the corner. Nurse was comingback from the mill.

  'Is it all right?' Una called.

  'All quite right,' Nurse called back. 'They're to be christened nextSunday.'

  'What? What?' They both leaned forward across the half-door. It couldnot have been properly fastened, for it opened, and tilted them out withhay and leaves sticking all over them.

  'Come on! We must get those two twins' names,' said Una, and theycharged uphill shouting over the hedge, till Nurse slowed up and toldthem. When they returned, old Middenboro had got out of his stall, andthey spent a lively ten minutes chasing him in again by starlight.